BABEL 


By  the  same  author: 

THE  MASK 
THE  WALL 


B  A  B  E  E 

John    Cournos 


& 


Ine, 


BONI  AND  LlVERIGHT 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


Copyright,  19811,  by 

BOXI  AWD  LlVEHIGHT,   INC. 


FEINTED  IN   THE  UNITED  STATES   OF  AMERICA 

First  printing,  September,  1922 
Second  printing,  October,  1922 


CONTENTS 
BOOK  I:     A  MEDLEY 


I.    A  MEDLEY 

Gombarov  Wakes  in  an  Old  World    .      .  13 

Universal  Speech  of  Money        ...  19 

Universal  Speech  of  Art      ....  24 

Universal  Speech  of  Inanimate  Objects  35 

Universal  Speech  of  Love    ....  37 

On  Sponging  for  Art's  Sake  ....  67 

Between  a  Sleep  and  a  Sleep  ....  71 

"Lon-n-n — don-n-n-n — !"       ....  74 

Universal  Speech  of  Hotel  Attendants  76 
Universal  Speech  of  International 

Politics 77 

Universal  Speech  of  Labour      ...  78 


BOOK  II:    PUBLICANS,  SINNERS,  SAINTS, 
ARTISTS,  PHILOSOPHERS,  OUTCASTS 

H.    VARIATIONS  ON  A  SINGLE  THEME 

Joy  on  a  'Bus 83 

Joy  on  Foot 90 

Joy  of  Bagpipes 

Joy  of  Obsession 96 

Joy  in  a  Cup  of  Tea 99 

7 


CONTENTS 


Joy  of  Winding  Streets       ....    100 

A  Joy  Refused     .......    103 

Joy  of  Joys   ........    105 

III.  THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

Elephant  and  Castle  ......  106 

Marble  Arch  ........  116 

Hampstead  Heath      ......  125 

Soho     ..........  133 

IV.  LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

Enter  Postman     .......    153 

Enter  Acquaintance  ......    162 

Enter  Friend        .......    164 

Enter  Brother      ......      .177 

V.    BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

Breaker  of  Ikons       ......  195 

Maker  of  Masks  .......  204 

Genius  as  Merchant  ......  214 

Merchant  as  Genius  ......  218 

Back-to-Nature  Advocate     ....  222 

Brain  in  the  Fog  .......  225 

Toad-in-the-Hole  .......  232 

VI.    THUMP!  THUMP!  THUMP! 

Ghost-Seeker  ......      ,      .  236 

A  Pioneer        ........  248 

The  Intuitionists  .      ......  251 

Demigods  in  Exile     ......  256 

League  Against  Age  ......  259 

Kings  Without  Kingdoms     ....  263 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

VII.    WITCHES'  CAULDRON 

In  Quest  of  Knowledge 266 

A  Woman's  Way 268 

Fog 272 

Flames 279 

VIII.    ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

Reflections  in  Piccadilly 288 

Molly 291 

Anita 296 

Kathleen 299 

Judith 304 

IX.    LIFE'S  CHESSBOARD  :  A  YEAR'S  MOVES 

The  Queen  Still  There 326 

A  Respite  from  the  Chessboard  .      .      .  330 
Miserable  Pawn,  Off  the  Board !  .      .      .334 

A  Move  to  Hampstead 337 

Bishop  Off  the  Board! 340 

After  the  Bishop— the  Knight !  .      .      .341 

Castle  Brought  Into  Play     ....  343 

An  Audacious  Move 352 

Real  King,  or  Alter  Ego?     ....  354 

BOOK  in:   BRAIN-STORM 
X.    BRAIN-STORM 

Quest  of  the  Golden  Fleece  ....  359 

End  of  the  Quest 364 

Jazz  Drinks,  Jazz  Music,  Jazz  Dancing  370 

New  Lamps  for  Old! 374 

Rift  Within  the  Lute 377 

City  of  Brotherly  Love  Again   .      .      .  380 
9 


CONTENTS 


Thick,  and  Faster! 383 

Brain  Jazz! 385 

Woman's  Privilege 390 

"It  Is  You,  Oh  Harlot  City!"  ...  395 

BOOK  IV :     BEFORE  THE  FALL 
XI.    LOVE'S  METAMORPHOSIS 

"Damn  Braces,  Bless  Relaxes"  .      .      .  401 

The  Whirlpool 409 

Fate  at  Her  Old  Tricks 415 

11.     IT  HAD  TO  BE 

The  Reckoning 422 

"On  to  Berlin!"    ,  ,  427 


10 


BOOK  I 

A  MEDLEY 

To  Olivia  Shakespear 


BABEL 

CHAPTER  I:     A  MEDLEY 

"And  the  whole  earth  was  of  one 
language,    and    of    one    speech." 
GENESIS,  xi:  i. 

GOMBAROV  WAKES  IN  AN  OLD  WORLD 

ONCE  more  Gombarov  dreamt  the  old,  ever  recurring 
corridor  dream,  which  had  come  to  him  at  irregular  intervals 
since  childhood,  always  in  a  new  variation. 

There  was  no  starting  point,  and  he  did  not  know  how,  when, 
and  where  he  had  gotten  into  a  peculiar  contrivance,  which,  if 
it  resembled  anything,  resembled  the  device  known  as  the 
"dumb-waiter."  But  he  undoubtedly  felt  the  terrifying  sensa- 
tion of  going  down,  down,  down,  with  incredible  and  ever  in- 
creasing speed,  until  he  reached  the  deep,  nethermost  cellar,  at 
the  very  foundations  of  what  must  have  been  an  immensely  tall 
building.  The  whole  house — for  house  it  surely  was — appeared 
alive  with  ancient  memories  and  portents  of  the  future.  It  was 
heaving  with  a  restlessness  as  of  gestating,  shut-in  thoughts 
trying  to  break  their  cells,  and  it  groaned  with  inexplicable, 
strange  noises,  which  aroused  intense  apprehension  in  the 
heart  of  the  visitor  who  groped  his  way  through  a  labyrinth 
of  dimly-lit  corridors  and  passed  by  innumerable  closed  doors, 
each  seeming  to  hide  an  alluring,  ugly  mystery.  Every  instant 
he  expected  a  door  or  doors  to  open,  and  a  Thing  or  Things  to 
pounce  upon  him.  At  his  side  there  glided  rather  than  walked 
13 


BABEL 

a  grey  presence,  a  vague  yet  familiar  human  shape,  as  noiseless 
and  intense  as  a  shadow  he  had  once  known  intimately  and 
with  hatred,  and  had  forgotten.  Fear  possessed  him,  as  it 
can  possess  only  in  dreams:  there  was  about  the  place  an 
atmosphere  of  something  terrible  impending  which  heavily 
oppressed  him,  while,  with  great  effort,  he  continued  his  way 
through  the  unending  maze  of  narrow,  almost  airless  passages, 
holding  in  one  hand  a  truncheon,  in  the  other  his  familiar 
gold  watch,  which,  oddly  enough,  had  ceased  exercising  its 
customary  function,  but,  even  as  he  walked,  gave  out  in  a 
gramophonic  voice  a  loud,  screechy,  disconcerting  tune,  a 
peculiarly  modern,  raucous  medley  made  up  of  threads  and 
snatches  of  songs  he  had  heard  sung  at  one  time  or  another 
by  white  men  blackened  to  resemble  negroes,  to  the  accom- 
paniment of  banjo-strumming  and  clog-hopping. 

The  dream  tune  woke  him.  Terrified  and  perspiring,  he 
peered  over  the  edge  of  his  bed-cover  and  wondered  where  he 
was.  The  room  was  alive  with  the  slow  movement  of  the 
particles  of  the  early  grey  light,  and  Gombarov's  half-open 
eyes  strayed  vaguely  and  reluctantly,  with  no  volition  of  their 
own,  but  wholly  responsive  to  the  hypnotic  persuasions  of 
dawn.  There  was  in  them  the  bewilderment  of  an  awakening 
from  a  trance,  then  a  strained  effort  to  identify  his  position. 
His  glance,  grown  steady  at  last,  fell  on  the  engravings  on  the 
wall.  These,  however,  were  sufficiently  cosmopolitan  to  reveal 
no  clue  to  his  whereabouts. 

With  diligent  scrutiny  he  studied  the  large  picture  directly 
facing  him  on  the  dingy  red  wall.  It  was  a  familiar  example 
of  what,  through  his  association  with  artists,  he  had  learnt  to 
know  as  a  masterpiece  of  bad  art,  a  favourite,  needless  to  say, 
with  that  great  public  which,  almost  single-voiced,  echoed  the 
familiar  sentiment,  "I  may  not  know  good  art,  but  I  know 
14 


A  MEDLEY 

what  I  like";  a  sentiment  which,  if  artistic  wiseacres  are  to 
be  believed,  is  peculiar  to  our  age,  a  by-product  of  democratic 
institutions.  The  picture  showed  a  wooded  spot;  in  the  fore- 
ground two  modish  females  of  the  furbelow  and  bustle  period 
stood  facing  one  another;  stripped  to  the  waist,  and  poised  in  an 
attitude  of  duel  combatants,  they  flourished  long  foils.  The 
presence  in  the  background  of  two  equally  modish  seconds 
testified  to  the  affair  being  properly  serious,  altogether  commc 
il  jaut.  The  breasts  of  the  facing  figure  seductively  confronted 
the  spectator;  the  other  figure  flaunted  its  hardly  less  alluring 
back;  the  fluffy  things  of  both  hung  down  from  the  waist,  not 
unlike  the  skins  of  half -shorn  lambs;  in  short,  it  was  a  produc- 
tion unerringly  calculated  to  tickle  the  fancy  of  a  susceptible 
bourgeois  world,  which  surely  knew  its  own  mind.  As  the 
wakened  sleeper's  eyes  strayed  leftward,  they  encountered 
another  picture,  which  answered  the  secret  aspiration  in  human 
beings  to  view  forbidden  fruit:  it  showed  a  young  naked  girl 
standing  ankle-deep  in  the  sea,  shivering  a  little,  perhaps  con- 
veniently, to  give  her  cause  to  stoop  in  a  shy  manner,  her  hands 
on  her  knees,  thus  achieving  the  effect  of  a  virgin  suddenly 
sighting  a  Peeping  Tom  and  piquantly  striving  to  hide  what 
strange  eyes  should  not  see. 

He  had  seen  the  same  pictures — and  furniture,  for  that 
matter — at  the  American  hotels  and  at  his  own  home  in  Phila- 
delphia; so  it  was  hardly  astonishing  that  on  waking,  his  first 
mood  should  have  been  one  sharply  conscious  of  his  position 
nearly  three  months  ago,  when  he  was  eking  out  a  livelihood 
for  himself  and  the  large  irresponsible  family — largely  of  his 
stepfather's  begetting — by  selling  himself,  soul  and  entrails, 
to  that  popular  organ  of  news  and  public  opinion,  the  New 
World. 

15 


BABEL 

"Blast  it!  It  must  be  nearly  time  to  go  to  work,"  he  mut- 
tered, and  thought  he  heard  his  mother's  footsteps. 

His  eyes  strayed  to  the  inscriptions  under  the  pictures: 
L'Affaire  d'Honneur  and  L'Aube  de  Septembre.  That  was 
strange:  the  pictures  at  home  were  inscribed  in  English. 

"What  a  funny  mistake!"  he  laughed,  as  he  grasped  the 
true  state  of  affairs:  that  he  was  no  longer  in  Philadelphia, 
that  he  had  not  been  there  for  nearly  three  months.  He  was 
in  Paris,  having  come  by  the  way  of  Naples,  Rome,  Florence, 
Venice,  and  Milan,  now  realised  visions  of  beauty,  which  had 
once  seemed  impossible. 

What  strange  things  dreams  were,  thus  to  destroy  all  sense 
of  time  and  space!  He  felt  relieved  at  the  thought  that  he  need 
not  go,  could  not  go  if  he  had  desired,  to  his  accustomed  place 
at  the  New  World,  where  he  had  misspent  fifteen  years,  the 
best  of  his  life.  There  was  comfort  for  him  in  the  thought  of 
there  being  three  thousand  miles  between  himself  and  the  place 
he  had  come  to  regard  as  his  prison.  Yet  now,  as  often  before, 
a  panic,  a  kind  of  blind  terror,  seized  him.  Never  before  had 
he  been  away  from  home  for  so  long.  He  had  been  too  near  a 
nervous  breakdown  to  experience  exultation  at  the  prospect  of 
facing  infinite  horizons,  endlessly  stretching  vistas  of  a  large 
world.  Surely  he  had  but  lately  left  a  prison,  had  been  there 
too  long  to  become  quickly  accustomed  to  the  dazzling  light  of 
freedom.  He  still  felt  the  clank  of  irons,  the  crushing  weight 
of  his  chains;  these  were  yet  with  him,  no  longer  at  his  ankles, 
but  in  his  heart.  So  heavily  they  sat  there,  that  the  joy  and 
blitheness  he  had  suspected  of  being  there  seemed  not  to  be 
there;  and  his  courage  ebbing,  he  would  wish  himself,  in  such 
a  mood,  back  at  his  treadmill,  which,  at  all  events,  afforded 
him  material  security.  Now,  when  once  more  this  fear  of  life 
was  upon  him,  he  cursed  himself  for  his  rashness  in  leaving  his 
16 


A  MEDLEY 

fleshpots  behind  him,  or  contrariwise,  for  his  faint-heartedness 
in  turning  from  the  Promised  Land.  Promised?  Well, 
hardly;  unless  one  could  say  that  the  land  which  Columbus 
set  out  to  seek  was  promised.  There  was  possibly  some  justifi- 
cation for  Gombarov's  colleagues  at  the  New  World  thinking 
him  a  fool  in  leaving  a  comfortable  position,  good  for  life,  and 
going  off  on  a  wild  goose  chase. 

What  did  he  want?  What  was  his  object,  without  his  seem- 
ing to  have  an  adventurous  soul,  to  thus  set  out  adventuring 
at  his  age,  in  wide,  uncertain  seas,  with  a  mutinous  crew  of 
instincts  ever  urging  him  to  turn  back?  What  secret  or  mystic 
force  in  him,  or  outside,  impelled  him  forward,  as  by  repeated 
proddings,  leaving  him  no  choice  but  to  obey?  Precise  knowl- 
edge was  withheld  from  him;  his  tragic  past  seemed  to  be 
without  reason,  and  he  was  vouchsafed  no  glimpse  of  the  future. 
There  were  no  horizons  spreading  before  him  as  he  proceeded 
on  his  journey;  the  walls  of  life  merely  appeared  to  recede  a 
little,  as  the  sea  mists  recede,  or  appear  to  recede,  before  ships 
advancing.  He  was  without  helm  or  rudder;  a  blind,  uncon- 
scious will  guided  him:  he  did  not  know  whether  toward  some 
blessed  isle,  where  his  tired  body  and  soul  might  rest,  or  toward 
some  malignant  torrent,  fiercely  forcing  a  path  through  the 
cleft  of  some  new  Scylla  and  Charybdis.  A  faint  hope  shone 
in  his  heart;  in  his  collected  moments  he  knew  that  he  was 
not  so  much  running  to  a  place  as  running  away  from  one. 
Let  worse  come,  so  it  be  different!  At  other  times  he  appeared 
to  be  running  from  himself,  which  would  seem  to  be  as  foolish 
as  a  dog  wildly  turning  to  bite  his  own  tail.  But  a  dog  does 
wildly  turn  sometimes  to  bite  his  own  tail;  and  he,  Gombarov, 
was  running  from  himself.  Himself?  Well,  not  exactly. 
From  what  the  world  and  circumstance  had  made  him.  He 
knew,  this  he  really  knew,  that  he  was  not  what  he  appeared 

'7 


BABEL 

to  be.  He  was  a  natural,  life-loving,  gay  man;  a  true  man  of 
this  earth,  and  loving  the  earth,  and  all  that  was  made  for 
man  on  the  earth.  He  felt  himself  to  be  like  the  Ancient 
Mariner  with  the  dead  albatross  hung  around  his  neck.  But 
some  one,  surely  not  he,  had  killed  the  albatross,  and  hung  it 
round  his  neck.  Why  they  had  killed  the  albatross,  and  why 
he,  innocent  of  its  killing,  should  have  been  chosen  to  bear  the 
ill-omened  burden  was  quite  beyond  his  knowledge. 

His  departure  from  the  American  city,  where  he  had  spent 
twenty  years  of  his  life,  was  the  second  sharp  break  in  his  life: 
the  first  had  been  when  he  had  left  his  ten  years  of  childhood 
behind  in  the  Russian  woods.  But  for  this  decision  to  cut  loose 
from  the  City  of  Brotherly  Love,  a  decision  that  saved  the  rem- 
nants of  his  manhood,  he  surely  would  have  put  a  bullet  in  his 
head.  That  would  appear  to  be  a  sufficient  reason  for  his  under- 
taking; after  all,  he  had  but  one  head,  while  the  supply  of 
bullets  was  in  no  danger  of  becoming  exhausted.  Bullets 
failing,  there  was  always  the  Thames,  famous  for  its  lethal 
waters,  which  had  consoled  many,  would  console  more.  That 
was  the  point:  he  had  nothing  to  lose,  nothing  whatsoever. 
There  was  plenty  of  time  to  jump  from  a  bridge,  or  take  a 
bullet  or  a  pill.  One  knew  so  little  of  the  two  most  widely 
advertised  countries.  Theological  Baedekers,  while  pointing 
the  ways — the  one  a  straight,  narrow  path,  the  other  a  bee  line, 
permitting,  however,  short,  even  very  short,  cuts — were  yet 
strangely  inadequate  as  to  landmarks  and  particulars  of  life 
in  either  place:  they  laid  peculiar  stress  on  the  respective 
climates,  on  which  they  dwelt  with  the  eloquence  and  veri- 
similitude of  eye  witnesses,  and  emphasised  the  advantages  of 
taking  up  one's  permanent  residence  in  a  temperate,  moderately 
sunny  country  lying  in  the  path  of  the  celestial  Gulf  Stream 
rather  than  living  in  an  active,  volcanic  crater  situated  in  the 
18 


A  MEDLEY 

infernal  supertropics,  where — if  the  reports  of  eyewitnesses 
be  correct — the  heat  is  sufficiently  great  to  permit  men  to  stew 
in  their  own  juice,  such  a  performance  being  unique  to  those 
regions  and  inconceivable  elsewhere,  certainly  not  on  this  earth, 
which  is  the  best  possible  sort  of  place,  at  all  events  for  Vicar 
and  Devil,  recruiting  sergeants  for  Heaven  and  Hell. 

UNIVERSAL  SPEECH  OF  MONEY 

For  the  time  being,  Gombarov  was  content  to  take  a  page 
out  of  the  practical  man's  book:  "See  your  own  country 
first."  He  did  not  take  this  too  literally,  hi  its  provincial 
sense,  in  the  sense  that  a  caterpillar  accepts  one  head  of  cab- 
bage, if  a  large  one,  as  its  complete  and  self-sufficient  world, 
but  accepted  the  earth  as  a  country  distinct  merely  from  the 
aforesaid  countries.  It  was  as  possible  nowadays  for  a  man  to 
circumnavigate  the  earth  as  it  is  for  a  caterpillar  to  make  a 
complete  circuit  round  a  cabbage.  Through  its  fast  railways, 
liners,  telegraphs,  the  world  was  one  country,  and  as  he  had 
learnt  on  his  journey,  it  had  one  universal  medium  of  speech: 
money.  One  had  but  to  flash  a  letter  of  credit,  an  American 
Express  cheque-book,  a  Bank  of  England  note,  a  mark,  krone 
or  rouble  note,  a  green-  or  a  yellow-back,  and,  best  of  all,  a 
gold  sovereign,  an  eagle,  or  a  double  eagle.  With  it,  one  had 
but  to  mention  the  name  of  a  place  one  wished  to  go  to,  the 
name  of  a  favourite  dish,  of  a  favourite  wine.  Somehow,  once 
you  showed  people  your  money,  you  invariably  got  what  you 
wanted.  Money  talks,  as  the  saying  goes:  and  it  talks  to  good 
effect,  one  language,  or  all,  as  you  choose. 

By  some  inexplicable  association  of  ideas,  Gombarov's 
strange  dream  seemed  to  have  unlatched  the  doors  behind 
which  reposed  his  newly  gathered  memories;  and  the  thought 
of  money  and  of  his  own  purse,  whose  too  meagre  contents 

19 


BABEL 

were  all  he  could  show  after  years  of  assiduous  industry, 
brought  to  his  mind  the  strange  individual  he  had  met  on 
board  the  steamer  on  the  way  to  Naples,  a  tall,  lanky,  energetic 
American  of  about  forty.  He  remembered  speaking  to  the 
man  and  bewailing  the  fact  that  he  was  going  to  Italy  without 
a  knowledge  of  the  language.  The  dry-witted  man  replied: 

"You  don't  want  to  know  the  language.  You  don't  want 
to  know  any  language.  You  want  to  show  the  colour  of  your 
money.  Why,  you  can  go  to  Indo-China,  and  you  bet  you 
won't  find  any  of  those  Hindu-Chinks  colour-blind.  No,  not 
they.  Nor  those  Espagnoles,  Frenchies,  or  Dagoes,  for  that 
matter.  There's  this  about  money.  You  can  smell  as  well  as 
see  it.  You  can  hear  it,  too,  so  far  as  that  goes.  The  right 
kind  of  money  makes  the  proper  kind  of  noise.  Nothing  like 
the  clink  of  gold  to  make  people  sit  up  and  take  notice.  You 
can't  hide  it.  Once  you  have  it,  you  can  be  dressed  in  rags, 
and  people  will  steer  towards  you  as  steel  towards  a  magnet. 
In  fact,  it  appeals  to  all  the  five  senses,  and  the  sixth,  if  there 
is  one.  Other  people  can  have  Esperanto  and  Volapiik,  which 
won't  buy  you  your  car  fare.  As  for  me,  I  am  all  for  the 
simoleons  as  an  international  lingo.  Carry  your  lingo  hi  your 
purse,  my  boy,  and  you  can't  go  wrong.  Those  Dagoes  will 
understand  you,  if  you  imitate  the  jabber  of  a  monkey." 

Gombarov,  annoyed  by  the  man's  cocksure  attitude,  which 
reminded  him  of  the  disturbing  slimness  of  his  own  purse, 
mildly  remonstrated: 

"I  quite  agree  with  you  about  Esperanto  and  Volapiik, 
though  for  different  reasons.  A  people's  soul  is  in  its  language, 
and  a  neutral  language  would  kill  that.  All  the  same,  aren't 
you  attaching  too  much  importance  to  money?" 

"You  can't  attach  too  much  importance  to  money,"  the 
other  interrupted  him. 

2O 


A  MEDLEY 

"There's  this  to  be  said  for  the  Esperantists,"  resumed 
Gombarov,  "they  are  trying  to  create  an  international  language 
so  that  men  of  various  nations  may  exchange  ideas,  become 
friendly  and  avoid  war."  It  was  not  what  was  hi  his  mind, 
but  the  other's  attitude  had  aroused  his  antagonism,  and  he 
was  prepared  to  defend  even  Esperanto,  with  which  he  was  far 
from  sympathetic. 

"Delighted  that  you've  brought  the  matter  up,  my  boy," 
said  the  lanky  man,  rubbing  his  hands.  "It's  money  again 
that's  going  to  put  an  end  to  all  wars.  It's  the  invention  of 
money  that's  repaired  the  original  mistake  of  Babel.  Why, 
man! "  he  exclaimed,  seizing  Gombarov  by  the  lapel  of  his  coat, 
"Europe  hasn't  had  a  real  decent  war  for  forty  years,  nothing 
since  the  Franco-Prussian  war.  It's  money  that's  done  it. 
International  finance.  International  exchange.  International 
credits.  Nothing  can  knock  that  tower  down.  The  world's 
one  small  country.  Don't  you  see,  my  boy" — the  speaker 
enthusiastically  tugged  at  Gombarov's  coat — "don't  you  see? 
It  stands  to  reason  that  a  world  bound  together  as  one  country 
can't  fight  against  itself.  That's  where  international  finance 
comes  in.  You  don't  suppose  that  financiers  with  banks  hi  all 
countries  would  be  such  chumps  as  to  cut  their  own  throats? 
When  Kaiser  Bill,  or  King  George  or  the  Tsar  of  Russia  is 
spoiling  for  a  fight,  there's  always  a  King  of  Finance  to  whisper 
the  word  in  his  ear,  and  instead  of  fighting,  the  royal  duffer 
goes  into  his  garden  and  gets  it  out  of  his  system  by  tramping 
down  the  grass  with  his  parade  boots  on.  Besides,  there's  not 
a  country  that  can  do  without  the  other.  One  country  has 
all  the  coal,  another  the  iron,  another  the  wheat,  another  the 
cotton,  and  so  on.  The  way  they  depend  on  one  another,  they 
might  be,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  one  country.  Yes,  my 
21 


BABEL 

boy,  money  is  a  cement.  There's  nothing  like  it  to  hold 
countries  or  men  together." 

"That's  all  very  well,"  protested  Gombarov,  "but  how  can 
you  explain  the  building  of  battleships  and  the  keeping  up  of 
great  armies?" 

"Give  me  a  harder  one.  That's  to  guarantee  peace,  of 
course.  These  are  used  only  against  the  niggers,  savages  and 
the  little  brigand  countries,  the  only  disturbers  of  peace  to-day. 
War  will  cease  as  soon  as  the  big  countries  have  gobbled  up 
the  little  ones  and  given  them  the  benefits  of  civilisation. 
That's  where  money — big  business — comes  in.  And  building 
battleships  gives  men  work,  keeps  them  out  of  mischief.  It's 
big  business  that  holds  the  world  together,  and  don't  you 
forget  it!" 

Gombarov  involuntarily  shuddered.  He  didn't  like  this  talk 
of  big  business.  He  was  interested  in  big  art.  He  knew  that 
big  business  and  big  art  were  not  friends. 

"Do  you  mind  telling  me  what  business  you  are  in?"  he 
asked  after  a  pause. 

"Not  at  all,"  the  other  replied,  drawing  out  a  card,  which 
he  handed  to  Gombarov,  who  read: 


MR.  HEZEKIAH  WOOD, 

Representative  of  the 

INTERNATIONAL  EMBALMING  COMPANY 

HEAD  OFFICE:  New  York.  BRANCHES:  Boston, 
Chicago,  San  Francisco,  Paris,  Berlin,  St.  Peters- 
burg, Tokyo,  Hong  Kong,  etc. 

— — — — — — _^_ — ^^— — 

As  Gombarov  looked  up  somewhat  puzzled,  Hezekiah  Wood 
proceeded  to  explain: 

22 


A  MEDLEY 

"We've  discovered  a  new  process  for  preserving  human 
corpses,  which  beats  the  Egyptian  process  to  a  frazzle.  We 
are  anxious  to  place  its  benefits  before  every  man,  woman  and 
child  in  the  world.  There's  nothing  like  being  dead  properly. 
And  we  give  a  guarantee  for  a  thousand  years  at  least." 

"What,  a  thousand  years!"  exclaimed  Gombarov,  incredu- 
lously, and  scrutinised  the  man  to  see  if  he  was  sane.  "What 
proof  can  you  give,  if  the  process  has  only  just  been  invented?" 

"WeVe  seen  to  that.  You  see,  we've  invented  a  decom- 
posing machine,  which  accelerates  the  process  of  decomposition 
— to  be  precise,  it  approximates  a  speed  of  five  years  to  the 
minute, —  and  we've  tried  it  on  ordinary  corpses  and  on  corpses 
treated  by  our  method,  and  it's  stood  the  test.  We  give  a 
written  guarantee,  and  the  corpse's  grandchildren  or  great 
grandchildren  are  at  liberty  to  sue  the  company  and  get  their 
money  back  at  compound  interest." 

As  if  he  had  read  a  question  in  Gombarov's  mind,  he 
exclaimed: 

"Don't  you  worry!  We  expect  to  bring  ancestry  into  good 
repute  again  by  advertising.  And  I  dare  say,  we'll  do  a 
thriving  business  in  China,  where  they  reverence  their  ancestors 
properly.  There  are  so  many  Chinks,  too!  It's  a  proper 
shame,  by  the  way," — the  steamer  was  then  passing  the  Rock 
of  Gibraltar — "it's  a  proper  shame  the  way  that  rock  is  wasted. 
We'd  pay  the  British  Government  handsomely  to  let  us  deco- 
rate that  rock  with  our  ad.  At  night  we'd  have  blazing  lights 
in  real  Broadway  and  Forty-second  Street  style.  We  might 
even  have  a  dying  figure  calling  for  our  process,  and  a  suitable 
text,  'In  the  midst  of  life  we  are  in  death,'  a  gentle  reminder 
to  men  on  ships  passing  in  the  night,  which  they  can  put 
into  their  noddle  and  remember  as  they  pass  on  to  three 
continents." 

23 


BABEL 

Again  Gombarov  involuntarily  shuddered,  as  he  thought  of 
how  only  a  few  days  before  they  had  gotten  a  wireless  message 
on  ship  board,  announcing  the  down-going  of  the  Titanic,  and 
of  the  gloom  it  had  cast  upon  the  crew  and  the  passengers, 
whose  self-sufficiency  suffered  from  Nature's  reminder  that 
Man  had  not  conquered  her.  He  looked  again  at  his  vis-a-vis, 
and  found  an  excuse  to  get  away.  It  was  quite  clear  that 
Hezekiah  Wood  was  not  a  madman,  but  a  thoroughly  practical 
business  man,  with  an  eye  on  the  main  chance. 

UNIVERSAL   SPEECH  OF   ART 

Gombarov 's  mind,  now  more  awake,  went  back  to  his  dream. 
And  back  again  to  Hezekiah  Wood,  the  preserver  of  corpses. 
Suddenly  it  occurred  to  him:  there  was  something  in  the  half 
shadowy  being  who  had  walked  beside  him  in  the  dream  that 
reminded  him  of  the  promoter  of  international  embalming. 
But,  in  an  explicable  way,  it  also  reminded  him  of  someone 
else.  Who? 

Perhaps  there  had  never  been  any  Hezekiah  Wood,  and  this 
personage  and  the  whole  conversation  was  but  a  figment  of 
his  fancy,  a  fantastic  thread  woven  into  the  not  less  fantastic 
texture  of  his  dream.  Gombarov  stretched  out  a  hand  towards 
the  small  table  by  his  bed  and  picked  up  a  copy  book,  his 
Diary,  in  which  he  had  set  down  the  most  significant  episodes 
that  had  occurred  to  him  since  he  started  on  his  pilgrimage. 
He  turned  to  a  date  in  April,  and  found  his  conversation  with 
Hezekiah  Wood  recorded  there. 

One  thing,  then,  was  certain:  Hezekiah — he,  somehow, 
thought  of  him  just  as  Hezekiah,  without  the  surname — this 
Hezekiah  was  a  real  personage,  real  in  spite  of  his  having 
appeared  in  the  dream.  And  yet,  that  feeling  of  there  having 
been  two  persons,  possibly  a  double  entity  in  one,  persisted. 
24 


A  MEDLEY 

Mechanically  he  turned  the  pages  of  his  Diary,  his  eyes 
pausing  at  a  name  here  and  there.  Suddenly  his  eyes  fixed 
themselves  on  a  recent  entry  made  in  Paris,  and  he  exclaimed: 

"Ah,  I  know.    It's  William  Douglass!" 

That  was  strange.  It  was  incredible  that  two  persons  so 
antithetic  should  mix  themselves  up,  even  in  a  dream.  To 
his  mind,  Douglass  as  surely  represented  Big  Art  as  Hezekiah 
Big  Business. '  The  strangest  part  was  that  there  were  essen- 
tial points  at  which  their  arguments  touched  and  even  harmo- 
nized. For  both  the  world  had  shrunk,  was  no  longer  wide 
and  flat,  but  like  a  cabbage,  or  an  orange,  had  become  palpably 
round,  had  gained  and  asserted  its  third,  and  possibly  its 
fourth,  dimension.  For  both,  the  world  in  its  contractedness 
was  moving  towards  a  unity  of  speech,  though  for  the  one 
the  medium  of  international  exchange  was  money,  for  the 
other  art. 

It  was  to  be  a  remembered  evening  in  Gombarov's  develop- 
ment when  he  first  called  at  Douglass's  studio,  in  the  company 
of  Mrs.  Gwynne  and  her  daughter  Winifred,  that  graceful, 
Botticellian-limbed  girl,  with  her  high-poised  small  dark  quat- 
trocento head,  who  had  beguiled  him  and  made  his  life  pendu- 
late between  heaven  and  hell.  But  the  telling  of  how  this 
pair,  having  administered  a  double  dose  of  wormwood  to  him 
in  the  City  of  Brotherly  Love  and  witnessed  his  crucifixion 
there,  had  come  into  his  life  again  in  Paris,  must  take  its  turn 
in  the  meanderings  of  Gombarov's  brain  that  morning,  in  the 
stream  of  recent  memories  which  so  curiously  and  inexplicably 
had  its  source  in  his  dream. 

Douglass's  studio  was  situated  in  a  small  street  off  the  Boule- 
vard Montparnasse.  The  door  was  opened  to  the  visitors  by 
Miss  Sylvia  Brent,  who  lived  amicably  with  Douglass  without 
the  legal  formality  of  marriage.  She  was  an  artist  on  her  own, 

25 


BABEL 

had  interests  in  common  with  him;  and  the  chief  difference 
between  their  pictures,  as  Gombarov  noted  later,  was  that  she 
went  in  for  curves,  Douglass  for  angles.  She  was  a  large  good- 
natured  creature,  all  curves  herself,  and  through  the  dia- 
phanous texture  of  her  white  blouse  two  broad,  pink  ribbons 
were  visible  on  the  curves  of  her  breasts,  like  dawns  on  moun- 
tains. Over  her  shoulders  she  wore  a  thin,  many-coloured 
silken  shawl,  such  as  he  had  not  seen  since  he  had  left  Italy. 
This  passion  for  bright  colour  was  even  more  evident  once 
you  entered  the  studio.  Spectral  yellows,  violent  greens,  flam- 
ing reds,  strident  blues  and  violets,  sprawled  about  in  great 
flaunting  splashes  on  the  canvases,  on  the  draperies  on  the 
walls  and  screens,  on  the  cushions  on  the  large  divan  and  the 
settees  and  chairs.  On  the  table  stood  a  bowl  of  vegetables 
and  fruits,  such  as  bananas,  pimentos,  blood-red  apples,  toma- 
toes, green  figs,  an  egg-plant  and  a  pomegranate  slashed  in 
two — the  whole  apparently  arranged  for  a  still-life.  Surely, 
these  people  had  captured  the  rainbow  and  had  taken  it  apart 
to  decorate  the  studio  with  its  components. 

Douglass  himself,  a  man  of  about  thirty-five,  greeted  the 
visitors  simply  and  heartily.  Oddly  enough,  he  did  not  culti- 
vate the  artistic  in  his  person.  His  medium,  robust  figure 
flaunted  no  velvet  jacket,  his  clean  firm  face  no  hirsute  orna- 
ments, his  hard,  well-shaped  head  no  hair  that  a  shrewish 
wife  might  clutch  at  with  any  comfort.  He  wore  an  ordinary 
drab  suit,  an  ordinary  collar  and  ordinary  tie  that  was  held 
together  with  an  ordinary  pin;  he  was,  at  all  events  out- 
wardly, an  individual  in  no  wise  different  from  Hezekiah.  He 
looked  strangely  out  of  place  in  that  large  room  with  its 
torrential  blaze  of  colour. 

"Can  he  be  an  artist?"  thought  Gombarov,  as  he  made  a 
quick  survey  of  his  own  artistic  figure  in  the  red-framed  glass 
26 


A  MEDLEY 

opposite  to  which  he  happened  to  sit.  He  took  a  pride  in  his 
long  luxuriant  hair  that  fell  in  natural  ringlets  over  his  fore- 
head and  in  his  large  black  wing  tie  made  for  him  by  Winifred's 
fingers.  Again  he  reflected:  how  infinitely  nicer  than  Miss 
Brent  his  own  slender  Winifred  looked  hi  her  home-made, 
quaintly  decorative  costume,  fitting  her  sinuous  virginal  form 
like  water  and  suggesting  faintly,  yet  with  precision,  the 
delicate  if  firm  modelling  of  her  small,  not  too  small,  breasts: 
a  twin  adornment  which  gives  a  woman  her  bearing,  a  poet 
something  on  which  to  write  couplets,  and  the  fortunate  man 
a  place  to  pillow  his  head. 

He  was  lost  in  his  reflections,  as  was  his  habit  even  hi 
company,  until  awakened  out  of  them  by  Mrs.  Gwynne's  shrill 
American  voice. 

"John,  come  and  see  Mr.  Douglass's  paintings." 

Gombarov,  Winifred  and  Miss  Brent  rose  simultaneously 
from  their  chairs  and  went  to  the  other  end  of  the  large  studio, 
where  Douglass  was  putting  a  picture  on  an  easel.  Mrs. 
Gwynne  was  by  no  means  a  connoisseur  of  painting,  but 
Douglass,  in  spite  of  his  somewhat  austere  face,  was  kind  and, 
above  all,  child-like,  expecting  others  to  understand  the  play 
of  his  mind  and  even  to  share  in  it.  This,  however,  was  not  so 
simple  a  matter  for  minds  whose  art  appreciations  had  no 
opportunity  of  developing  beyond  Impressionism.  Even 
Gombarov,  who  had  mingled  and  kept  abreast  with  the  Amer- 
ican "moderns,"  was  nonplussed  on  beholding  the  new  art, 
as  practised  by  Douglass. 

There  was  an  audible  silence  lasting  some  minutes,  while 
the  visitors  studied  the  picture  and  its  strange  angular  figures, 
which  half  resembled  human  beings,  half  mechanical  con- 
trivances, painted  in  broad  patterns,  in  almost  primal  greens, 
yellows  and  reds. 

27 


BABEL 

Gombarov  was  afraid  to  look  at  the  artist.  Was  the  man 
mad?  He  re-experienced  the  emotions  he  had  had  some  weeks 
before  in  the  presence  of  Hezekiah;  but  at  last,  taking  courage, 
looked  up.  Douglass's  face  was  simple  and  benign,  without  a 
trace  of  the  fanatic;  the  common  sense  usually  ascribed  to  the 
Scot  seemed  to  mark  the  hardy  features  as  emphatically  as  it 
had  marked  the  face  of  the  Yankee  promoter. 

"What's  the  subject  of  this  picture?"  he  finally  asked, 
burning  with  a  curiosity  to  get  at  the  bottom  of  the  mystery. 
The  intensity  of  his  curiosity  overcame  his  shyness;  he  was 
keenly  aware  of  the  danger  of  committing  a  faux  pas. 

"In  the  exhibition  catalogue  I  called  it  the  'Beginning  of 
the  End/  "  replied  the  artist,  "though  I  had  thought  of  calling 
it  'The  Hashish  Eaters.'  I  had  got  the  idea,"  he  proceeded 
to  explain,  "on  a  visit  to  an  underground  cabaret  at  Mont- 
martre.  One  of  the  tables  in  a  little  corner  by  itself  was 
occupied  by  a  group  of  haggard  looking  figures,  three  men  and 
a  woman,  who  were  pointed  out  to  me  as  hashish  fiends  in  the 
last  stages  of  their  ruin.  I  don't  know  whether  you  are 
familiar  with  the  effects  of  hashish.  As  I  looked  at  them  and 
studied  them,  I  tried  to  enter  their  skins,  to  reconstruct  their 
lives,  as  I  saw  them  in  my  imagination.  It  first  occurred  to 
me  that  they  had  lived  fast,  at  an  accelerated,  one  might  say, 
mechanical  speed.  With  them  a  single  step  has  been  as  a 
mile,  an  instant  as  an  eternity,  a  street  lamp  as  the  sun,  a 
two-story  shack  as  a  castle.  Their  sky  was  covered  with  so 
many  moons  instead  of  stars.  And  as  I  watched  them,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  now  and  then  I  detected  a  look  of  the 
inevitable  in  their  eyes,  as  if  they  saw  a  grave — not  a  mere 
hole,  but  an  abyss,  opening  before  their  eyes  ...  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  debris  of  their  dream  castles  falling,  or  about 
to  fall,  about  their  ears  .  .  .  their  last  illusions  crumbling.  I 
28 


A  MEDLEY 

have  tried  to  set  all  this  down  in  the  picture,  what  their  sensa- 
tions must  be  in  terms  of  my  art." 

Gombarov  studied  the  picture  more  closely,  keeping  the 
artist's  explanation  in  mind  as  one  does  the  programme  notes 
hi  listening  to  a  piece  of  music.  The  effect  was  as  elusive. 
He  was  baffled  by  this  conglomeration  of  angles,  steel-like 
and  mechanical  in  structure,  riveted  together  to  form  a  pat- 
tern incomprehensible  to  him.  He  could  not  understand 
why  the  figures  had  angular  heads,  angular  mouths,  angular 
hands  and  feet,  manipulated — it  seemed — on  hinges;  why  they 
drank  out  of  angular  cups,  and  why  the  angular  lamps  from 
above  cast  angular  lights  and  shadows  on  their  angular  con- 
tours; and  all  around  them  there  appeared  to  be  a  chaos  of 
falling  girders. 

"The  idea,  as  you  tell  it,"  ventured  Gombarov,  is  a  fine 
one,  but  frankly,  I  cannot  understand  your  way  of  expressing 
it.  Do  you  mind  explaining  your  method?" 

"Not  at  all,"  said  Douglass.  "Not  at  all.  I  am,  first  of 
all,  a  man  of  my  own  age.  This  is  not  an  age  of  knights  and 
ladies.  It  is  a  scientific  age,  an  age  of  engineering  and 
mechanics.  The  dominating  factor  is  the  machine.  The 
machine  has  given  the  world  a  unity  it  has  not  had  before. 
Through  its  fast  ships,  railways  and  telegraphs,  its  manufac- 
tured products,  the  world  has  gained  an  amazing  sameness. 
It  is  fast  killing  nationality  and  local  colour.  To  be  in  har- 
mony with  his  own  time,  a  modern  artist's  duty  is  to  record 
and  express  the  spirit  that  moves  the  modern  world,  and  he 
cannot  do  this  otherwise  than  by  adopting  the  principles  of 
science  and  becoming  as  universal  and  abstract  as  science  itself. 
The  Impressionists  began  the  revolution  by  adopting  science's 
superficialities,  the  colours  of  the  spectrum  and  the  vibration 
of  light.  We,  artists  of  today,  go  further  by  showing  the  very 
29 


BABEL 

soul  of  science;  that  is,  the  soul  of  our  age.  The  soul  of  the 
machine,  if  you  like." 

"Has  the  machine  a  soul?"  asked  Gombarov. 

"Good  Lord,  yes!"  said  Douglass,  and  added,  smiling,  "To 
be  sure,  it's  not  the  soul  of  a  young  lady.  It  is  a  pitiless, 
relentless,  conquering  soul." 

Gombarov  was  seized  with  a  momentary  bitterness,  as  he 
thought  of  Winifred  and  of  how,  though  a  young  lady,  she 
had  been  pitiless  and  relentless  to  him,  and  of  how,  with  her 
soft  hands,  she  had  conquered  him.  It  was  true,  she  was  his 
again,  but  his  heart  was  full  of  misgiving  for  the  future. 
There  was  a  silence.  Then  he  heard  Douglass's  voice  again: 

"Yes,  science  has  made  the  world  one,  and  has  given  the 
world  one  speech.  Yes,  even  in  the  arts  nationality  is  being 
killed,  and  soon  the  paintings  of  one  country  will  be  like  the 
paintings  of  another  country.  Artists  will  be  regarded  with 
the  same  universal  detachment  as  scientists.  The  scientist 
Mendeleyeff  is  a  Russian,  but  there's  no  reason  at  all  why  he 
should  not  be  a  Frenchman.  Universal  speech  in  the  arts  is 
being  accomplished  at  last." 

Strange!  That  was  precisely  what  Hezekiah  had  said  of 
money.  Was  there,  then,  some  connection  between  the  colour 
of  money  and  the  colour  of  a  modern  artist's  paint?  Possibly, 
since  Big  Business  and  Big  Art  were  apparently  founded  on 
the  same  principle,  that  of  the  machine.  Gombarov  refrained 
from  speaking  his  thought. 

The  artist  took  down  the  picture  from  the  easel  and  replaced 
it  with  another,  this  time  obviously  a  still-life,  consisting  of 
some  bananas,  apples,  a  liqueur  bottle  and  the  heading  of  the 
Petit  Parisien  in  the  background.  The  letters  of  the  news- 
paper heading  sprawled  across  the  picture  and  dominated  it. 
The  fruit  was  such  as  he  had  never  seen  before.  It  might 
30 


A  MEDLEY 

have  been  manufactured  at  Sheffield.  Its  edges  were  angular, 
hard  and  sharp.  It  looked  indigestible. 

"One  may  express  the  spirit  of  the  world  even  in  a  still- 
life,"  observed  Douglass.  "A  banana  or  an  apple  is  a  world 
in  itself;  in  fact,  every  object  is  a  microcosm,  so  far  as  the 
artist  is  concerned.  Take  a  banana.  There  is  no  reason  why 
an  artist  should  not  apply  the  problem  of  engineering  to  a 
banana;  none  at  all.  It  is  a  piece  of  construction,  a  geomet- 
rical form  like  any  other,  a  perfectly  related  shape,  a  piece 
of  mechanics  that  is  as  wonderful  in  its  way  as  the  Firth 
Bridge  or  a  New  York  skyscraper." 

"Where  does  human  personality  come  in?"  interrupted  the 
persistent  Gombarov. 

"I  had  expected  you  to  ask  that,"  said  Douglass.  "No  one 
asks  that  question  about  a  piece  of  music  by  Bach.  Yet  no 
art  more  than  music,  especially  by  Bach,  is  subject  to  such 
hide-bound  mathematical  laws  and  geometric  patterns.  Now, 
you  wouldn't  say  that  there  is  no  humanity  in  that  music  or 
that  the  composer's  personality  doesn't  shine  in  every  phrase 
of  his  work?  Take  that  banana  again — " 

"I'd  rather  not!"  said  Gombarov,  with  a  laugh,  in  which 
the  rest  joined. 

"The  fundamental  geometries  of  that  banana,"  went  on 
Douglass,  "are  its  own,  but  the  nuances  of  its  shape  and  colour 
and  the  play  of  light  are  all  mine,  and  are  the  product  of  my 
temperament  hi  a  certain  mood  at  a  given  time  of  day,  all 
scientifically  inter-related.  A  thousand  circumstances,  how- 
ever petty,  which  have  a  mathematical  relation  to  one  another, 
but  which  would  seem  impossible  to  calculate  mathematically, 
may  have  gone  to  produce  the  banana  as  it  is  on  the  canvas. 
But  I  can  imagine  that  a  different  set  of  circumstances,  equally 
inter-related,  would  produce  a  different  effect.  Suppose, 
31 


BABEL 

instead  of  painting  it  in  a  calm  mood,  I  had  painted  it  in  a 
temper.  Say,  I  had  been  to  see  a  woman.  She  thwarted  me. 
Made  me  angry.  I  have  come  into  my  studio.  I  am  seeing  red. 
I  set  to  painting  that  banana.  That  banana  is  usually  yellow, 
but  today  I  am  seeing  it  red.  I  am  not  only  painting  it  red, 
but  am  adding  geometrical  nuances  of  light  and  form  which 
contain  the  psychology  of  my  personal  dynamics.  But  my 
particular  mood  is  never  master,  but  is  always  controlled  by 
my  geometries,  my  modern  technique,  which  merely  builds  up 
forms  to  contain  my  serenity,  or  my  temper,  or  my  exultation, 
as  the  case  may  be.  Now,  Sylvia's  art  is  quite  different.  ..." 

"Yes,  I  am  a  reaction  from  William,"  said  Miss  Brent, 
laughing,  as  she  took  up  the  cue.  Like  most  young  artists, 
she  wanted  her  own  work  to  be  talked  about. 

"Do  show  us  your  pictures,"  suggested  Mrs.  Gwynne,  who 
could  always  be  expected  to  do  the  polite  thing. 

Then  they  all  followed  Miss  Brent  through  a  partition  in 
the  draperies,  which  separated  her  half  of  the  studio  from 
Douglass's. 

"I  mean,"  said  Miss  Brent,  taking  up  the  thread  of  her 
thought,  where  she  had  left  off,  "I  react  from  the  scientific 
spirit  of  the  age.  I  believe  we  are  too  sophisticated;  so  I 
go  in  for  the  primitive."  And  she  began  hunting  among  the 
canvases  piled  up  against  the  wall. 

"Show  them  'Victory!'"  suggested  Douglass. 

"Here  it  is!"  exclaimed  Miss  Brent,  as  she  pulled  out  a 
canvas  and  placed  it  on  the  easel. 

It  was  to  Gombarov  an  extraordinary  picture.  A  huge  fat 
negress,  who  was  as  closely  related  to  the  hippopotami  as  to 
the  human  species,  was  emerging  with  a  stride  from  a  jungle 
of  green,  giant-leaved  plants,  which  loomed  upward  in  a  series 
of  broad  curves.  The  negress,  ebony  and  shiny,  had  a  tomtom 
32 


A  MEDLEY 

slung  from  her  neck  and  covering  her  tight,  rounded  belly. 
She  was  beating  the  tomtom  wildly  and  clamorously.  Her 
elongated  breasts  hung  down  like  two  miniature  tomtoms, 
being  of  the  exact  shape.  Her  wild,  wavy  hair,  flung  back  to 
match  the  stride  of  her  legs,  only  half  revealed  the  curves  of 
the  large  ivory  ear-rings.  Another  large  white  ring  was  in 
her  broad  flat  nose.  No  opportunity  was  lost  to  add  another, 
and  still  another  curve.  The  meaning  of  the  picture  was  plain 
enough. 

"A  French  critic  has  called  it  the  modern  'Victory  of 
Samothrace,' "  said  Douglass. 

"I  have  tried  to  show,"  explained  Miss  Brent,  "that  the 
primitive  instincts  still  rule  the  world,  in  spite  of  all  science. 
But  one  thing  William  and  I  have  in  common:  we  no  longer 
speak  in  local  dialects.  We  are  trying  to  create  a  language 
which  the  whole  world  will  understand  .  .  ." 

And  so  on,  and  so  on. 

Gombarov  argued  the  new  ideas  with  his  hosts  at  length, 
and  when  he  left  he  felt  all  wrought  up  over  his  latest  experi- 
ence. His  mind  was  in  a  state  of  fierce  conflict.  He  had 
rather  taken  a  liking  to  the  two  persons;  he  saw  that  they  had 
spoken  with  sincerity  and  conviction;  he  even  recognised  the 
plausibility  and  logic  of  their  theories;  altogether  they 
appeared  to  be  sensible,  reasonable  people.  And  yet  there 
were  those  terrible  pictures!  A  phrase  of  Douglass's  kept  on 
coming  back  to  him:  "Art's  effort  in  the  past  has  been  to 
seduce.  Its  aim  today  is  to  violate."  That  was  it,  then! 
That  was  why  he  had  felt  so  wrought  up,  so  unreasonably  in 
a  temper.  His  own  mind,  long  fostered  on  different  concepts 
of  beauty,  had  suffered  from  attempted  violation.  Otherwise 
he  could  not  explain  his  feelings.  But  why  should  there  be 
33 


BABEL 

this  desire  on  the  part  of  artists  to  violate?  Time  would  tell, 
perhaps. 

He  visited  several  art  exhibitions  and  saw  pictures  even 
more  violent  in  colour  and  design  than  Douglass's  or  Miss 
Brent's,  whereupon  his  mind  became  a  seething  kettle  of 
questionings  and  doubts.  He  was  discreet  enough  not  to  laugh 
as  he  had  seen  others  do.  He  knew  that  the  Impressionists 
had  been  also  laughed  at  when  they  first  appeared.  But  if 
these  men  were  really  mad,  it  was  surely  no  laughing  matter. 
One  madman  may  be  the  butt  of  sane  men,  but  there  was  no 
laughing  at  a  madhouse.  If  these  men  were  mad,  they  were 
so  with  a  method.  He  had  had  time  to  learn  that  the  maddest 
of  them  could  draw  in  a  masterly  normal  manner,  which  they 
had  wilfully  forsaken  for  this  new  art. 

"Most  strange  of  all,"— ran  a  passage  in  his  Diary— "after 
visiting  these  modern  exhibitions,  you  go  to  a  public  gallery 
of  old  masters,  and  the  feelings  you  experience  are  not  the 
same  as  before  seeing  the  new  pictures.  Somehow,  serene  and 
beautiful  as  always,  they  have  grown  more  reticent,  remote 
and  mysterious;  as  if  they  had  suddenly  made  up  their  minds 
to  hide  themselves  behind  their  own  shadows,  or  to  shroud 
themselves  behind  their  centuries.  Coming  from  a  modern 
exhibition  to  these,  I  feel  as  if  I  had  come  from  a  maddeningly 
dazzling  room  into  a  room  of  twilight  and  dusk,  a  room  of 
beautiful  dim  masks  with  arrested  expressions,  of  felicitous 
moments  out  of  the  great  past,  caught  and  imprisoned  in  the 
cage  of  eternity.  Why,  then,  am  I  being  helplessly  drawn  to 
those  other  pictures  produced  by  apparently  maddened  brains? 
Has  my  mind  been  actually  violated  by  these  and  is  it  now 
being  drawn  to  its  violators;  or  is  it  that  they  do  represent  the 
life  of  today,  and  that  it  is  life  itself,  such  as  it  is,  that  draws 
me?" 

34 


A  MEDLEY 

UNIVERSAL  SPEECH  OF  INANIMATE  OBJECTS 

What  a  strange  three  months  these  had  been,  since  he  had 
left  home!  thought  Gombarov.  And  once  more  his  mind  wan- 
dered back  to  the  dream.  How  amusing  that  bit  about  the 
watch  giving  out  a  gramophonic  cacophony!  Why  was  he 
constantly  returning  to  the  dream?  Why  did  diurnal  reality 
and  nocturnal  vision  so  intricably  mix  themselves  up,  so  you 
could  not  tell  one  from  the  other?  He  was  possessed  by  an 
intense  quite  unaccountable  feeling,  a  conviction  wholly  sensa- 
tional, having  no  connection  with  the  brain,  that  the  dream  he 
had  dreamt  was  a  concentrated,  as  it  were,  a  distilled  essence, 
of  his  experiences  during  his  brief  wanderings.  At  last  he  was 
in  the  Europe  he  had  longed  to  see,  with  a  native's  longing; 
and  now  Europe  was  such  a  strange  mixture  of  the  old  and 
the  new,  of  the  mellow  reality  of  old  dreams  and  of  the 
assertive  blatancy  of  incoherent  newness. 

He  looked  round  him  again.  He  was  obviously  in  a  room 
of  an  old  house,  once  a  family  residence,  now  fitted  up  as  a 
hotel.  An  old  oaken  beam,  cracked  in  places,  supported  the 
low  ceiling;  and  from  this  beam  an  electric  light  hung  down 
over  the  chest  of  drawers  in  front  of  the  mirror.  He  was 
lying  in  a  huge  iron,  brass-knobbed  bed,  its  legs  on  casters. 
The  usual  wash-stand,  with  all  the  customary  paraphernalia, 
stood  in  the  far  corner  of  the  room.  A  large  upholstered  cosy 
chair,  worse  for  use,  stood  half-tottering  near-by;  his  clothes 
lay  on  it  in  disarray.  The  windows  were  overhung  with 
familiar,  frippery  white  lace  curtains,  parted  in  the  middle; 
reinforced  by  worn  drab  blinds,  which,  as  they  were  in  poor 
working  order,  Gombarov  did  not  take  the  trouble  to  draw 
down.  Once  more  his  gaze  fell  upon  the  two  pictures.  And 
he  recalled  that  the  lavatory  arrangements  bore  the  name  of 
35 


BABEL 

an  English  firm,  and  that  the  steam-radiators  in  the  hall  had 
been  made  in  America. 

The  inanimate  objects  in  the  room  spoke  a  universal  lan- 
guage, since,  in  the  matter  of  usage,  they  were  not  peculiar 
to  any  one  country.  He  had  seen  them  in  Philadelphia, 
Buffalo,  Boston,  Hoboken,  Rome,  and  he  did  not  doubt  that 
he  would  see  them  in  Bloomsbury. 

How  many  nationalities,  how  many  international  couples, 
had  lain  hi  that  same  bed,  whose  loosened  springs  now  thrust 
themselves  through  the  worn  international  mattress  into  his 
sides? 

The  house  was  French,  and  it  was  old;  the  objects  it  con- 
tained came  from  many  lands,  and  were  new.  It  was  hard  to 
tell  whether  the  old  house  resented  it,  or  whether  an  old  bottle 
resents  a  new  wine;  or  again,  whether  a  new  wine  resents  an 
old  bottle.  And  all  that  he  had  thus  far  seen  of  Europe  was 
like  that:  an  old  bottle  fermenting  a  new  wine.  Was  not  that 
a  symbol  of  Europe? 

The  people  themselves  who  owned  and  used  these  things 
seemed  to  be  old,  very  old.  The  very  dogs,  reflecting  their 
masters,  did  not  bark  at  one,  and  regarded  strangers  quietly 
and  sleepily.  Life  was  restful  after  America.  Only  the  new 
inanimate  objects  were  blatant;  machines  and  products  manu- 
factured by  machines  obtruded  themselves  and  dislodged  the 
old  things,  which  were  essentially  national  and  characterised 
by  the  quality  called  "local  colour."  Civilisation,  it  seemed 
to  him,  was  moving,  all  but  hi  its  architecture,  towards  a 
standardisation  of  life.  But  architecture,  the  hallmark  of  any 
civilisation,  in  a  sense,  did  not  exist  at  all.  He  remembered 
how  he  had  marvelled  when  he  first  looked  upon  old  Florence 
and  noted  its  architectural  unity;  above  all,  the  wonder  that 
filled  him,  when  he  saw  for  the  first  time  the  aspiring,  harmo- 
36 


A  MEDLEY 

nious  shapes  of  old  cathedrals,  and  realised  that  a  whole  people 
had  poured  its  soul  into  these  shapes  of  long  making.  What 
he  saw,  however,  of  the  new  architecture  struck  him  as  being 
a  medley,  not  at  all  unlike  the  medley  of  tunes  he  had  heard 
in  his  dream. 

Everywhere  appeared  to  be  this  violation  of  the  old  by  the 
new. 

UNIVERSAL  SPEECH  OF  LOVE 

Under  the  stress  of  his  new  experiences,  his  waking  mind 
was  also  becoming  a  medley  of  discordant  tunes.  One  clear, 
inviolate  note,  however,  was  radiantly  audible  amid  the  clatter 
of  this  cacophony  of  crowding  impressions;  and  to  this  slender 
exquisite  music,  the  integral  part  of  him,  as  deep-rooted  as 
the  trees  of  the  Russian  forest  in  which  he  had  lived  his  child- 
hood, returned  again  and  again,  with  a  persistence  that  aston- 
ished him. 

It  was  his  love  of  Winifred. 

Love  has  always  been,  from  the  time  that  Adam  knew  Eve, 
the  most  universal  of  languages.  And  not  all  the  falling  debris 
of  the  tower  of  Babel  has  succeeded  in  separating  scattered, 
fleeing  lovers. 

Hence,  "all  mankind  loves  a  lover";  and  a  lover  loves  the 
whole  world.  In  embracing  his  love,  the  world's  equatorial 
line  contracts  to  the  slenderness  of  his  love's  waist;  while 
the  temperate  zones  are  quite  absent.  There  would  seem  to  be 
no  apparent  connection  between  science  and  love;  yet  their 
creative  processes  and  effects  are  not  unlike.  Science's  girding 
arm  around  the  willingly  or  unwillingly  yielding  earth  make 
the  world  small;  a  man's  virile  arm  around  a  willing  woman's 
waist  reduces  the  world  to  a  microcosm.  The  whole  world  is 
where  the  woman  is;  is  in  the  woman.  So  much  has  one 

37 


BABEL 

conquered,  whether  with  science  or  with  love.  All  of  which 
belongs  to  the  metaphysics  of  conquest. 

But  suppose  the  earth  did  not  yield,  and  angrily  cast  up 
her  eruptions  and  landslides,  buried  man's  railways  and  canals, 
and  called  upon  her  brother  Ocean  to  sink  ships  and  her 
brother  Wind  to  fling  down  telegraph  wires;  then  the  earth 
has  not  been  conquered.  Suppose,  again,  a  woman  did  not 
yield,  or  yielded  unwillingly,  withheld  her  caresses,  and  cast 
up  hostile  fire  out  of  her  unsubmitting  heart,  overwhelming 
her  lover;  then  the  woman  has  not  been  conquered. 

That  was  his  trouble.  He  loved  Winifred,  and  she  was  his 
again.  But  he  was  not  sure  of  her.  He  had  loved  for  years, 
he  had  loved  her  always,  he  had  nearly  gone  mad  for  her,  but 
he  was  not  sure  of  her.  Not  sure  of  her. 

It  was  strange  how  she  had  come  back  to  him.  Come  back 
to  him  after  forsaking  him.  He  was  not  sure  of  her  because 
he  had  loved  her  so,  and  she  had  loved  him  so;  and  she  had 
forsaken  him  after  loving  him  so.  And  she  had  now  come 
back  to  him.  After  handing  him  a  cup  of  wormwood.  After 
her  mother  had  handed  him  a  cup  of  wormwood.  He  had 
drunk  both  cups  to  the  last  dregs.  Winifred's  "Don't  be 
dramatic!"  on  their  parting  at  the  railway  station  in  Phila- 
delphia; her  mother's  "Be  a  man!"  at  the  same  time,  at  the 
same  place.  After  they  had  loved  him  so.  After  he  had  loved 
them  so. 

He  had  never  expected  to  meet  them  again.  Though  he 
had  received  letters  from  them.  They  had  gone  abroad  before 
him.  They  had  gone  before  him,  he  after  them.  After  them, 
in  the  matter  of  time.  That  is,  not  after  them.  He  would 
have  gone,  anyhow.  He  had  to  go.  Somewhere.  He  could 
not  live  in  that  cul-de-sac  any  longer,  after  they  had  forsaken 
him.  He  would  have  gone  mad  if  he  had  stayed  on  there. 
38 


A  MEDLEY 

But  they  wrote  to  him.  Kept  on  writing  to  him.  He  had 
received  a  letter  in  Naples,  begging  him  to  see  them  in  Paris 
on  his  way  to  London.  He  had  given  up  hope  of  her,  yet 
entertained  a  secret  hope  deep  down  in  his  heart,  a  secret  hope 
with  a  stone  round  its  neck,  that  all  was  not  lost,  that  she 
would  write,  that  she  would  come  back  to  him.  And  she  did 
come  back  to  him;  but,  as  she  had  forsaken  him  once,  he  was 
not  sure  of  her. 

It  was  terrible  not  to  be  sure  of  a  thing.  Of  a  thing  you 
loved.  Of  someone  who  loved  you.  He  wanted  the  eternal. 
Love  to  him  meant  the  eternal.  If  it  was  not  eternal,  then  it 
was  not  love.  Was  he,  then,  old-fashioned?  But  can  one  call 
what  is  eternal,  what  is  changeless,  old-fashioned?  An  old 
tune  went  on  recurring  in  his  mind,  eternal  and  inviolate. 
The  eternal  is  inviolate. 

But  she — what  of  her?  She  was  a  medley  of  emotions, 
many  tunes  in  one,  inter-violating.  She  was  a  thing  of  nuance, 
a  many-plumed  bird,  in  which,  above  others,  he  loved  one 
plume.  But  every  plume,  every  distinct  tint  of  her,  wanted, 
cried  for  another  lover,  was  likely  to  draw  to  her  another 
lover.  A  remark  she  had  casually  dropped  gave  him  his  first 
inkling  of  it. 

He  remembered,  how  well  he  remembered,  what  she  had 
said,  as  they  sat  one  evening  together,  at  the  Cafe  de  la  Paix, 
and  watched  the  crowd  pass  by,  like  a  dark  sluggish  water, 
on  and  on,  seeking  to  escape  stagnation,  little  streams  diverting 
themselves  into  gayer  side  channels,  here  and  there  a  live 
ripple  showing  in  the  shape  of  a  tres  chic  courtesan,  a  bait  in 
her  laughing  eyes,  a  language  any  man  could  understand. 

Winifred,  intercepting  one  of  these  glances,  thrown  at  a 
male  by  a  silk-stockinged,  tight-skirted  she-devil,  stopped 
sipping  her  cajc  au  lait  and  remarked: 

39 


BABEL 

"I  can  understand  a  woman  loving  five  or  six  men,  but  I 
can't  understand  her  taking  up  with  so  many." 

"You  are  wicked  to  say  that,"  said  her  mother. 

"No,  I'm  not!"  said  Winifred. 

Gombarov  said  nothing. 

Deep  down  at  the  bottom  of  him  a  thought  stirred,  an 
inarticulate  emotion,  a  mingled  feeling  of  anger,  resentment 
and  sadness,  against  what  underlay  Winifred's  remark.  Its 
implication  was  intelligible  enough;  it  made  him  feel  as  if  he 
had  but  a  fifth  or  sixth  of  her,  not  all  of  her.  Paris,  quickly, 
too  quickly!  was  scratching  her  puritanic  skin,  made  in 
America,  and  revealing  as  yet  lightly,  underneath,  the  seven 
suppressed  devils  of  seven  suppressed  generations  which  had 
chosen  her  as  their  habitation.  But  the  whole  truth  of  this 
Gombarov  had  not  surmised  at  the  time,  just  as  he  no  more 
than  dimly  suspected  the  presence  of  the  several  devils  which 
lurked  inside  his  own  unscratched  skin.  Her  remark  carried 
a  poisoned  barb  that  pierced  deep;  and  the  wound  was  such 
as  would  have  afflicted  any  man  who  had  heard  his  goddess 
blaspheme. 

Though  he  wanted  her,  he  had  not  asked  her  to  come  back. 
She  had  come  back  to  him  of  her  own  will.  He  hardly  knew 
why  she  had  come  back.  Very  likely,  he  thought,  she  had 
missed  him  in  the  months  of  absence,  since  that  sad,  unseemly 
parting  in  Philadelphia.  Possibly,  his  virtues  as  a  lover  gained 
in  the  perspective  of  time  and  space.  Had  not  a  former  love 
of  his,  the  elfin  Muriel,  once  confessed  to  him  that  she  always 
grew  more  desperately  fond  of  him  when  he  was  away?  Which 
signified  something  or  nothing,  according  to  the  light  in  which 
one  judged  this  deliciously  ironic  double  entendre.  Neverthe- 
less, it  gave  him  a  subtle  pleasure:  the  thought  that  he  had 
40 


A  MEDLEY 

not  encouraged  Winifred  to  come  back  to  him,  that  she  had 
come  back  to  him  of  her  own  accord. 

On  arriving  in  Paris,  he  had,  on  her  invitation,  called  at 
their  little  flat,  and  to  keep  his  feelings  from  bursting  their 
flood-gates,  he  had,  on  this  visit,  brought  along  with  him 
Alfred  Welsh,  a  young  painter  of  cockney  extraction  whom 
he  had  picked  up  at  Naples,  and  who,  by  the  tune  they 
reached  Paris,  had  become  an  intolerable  nuisance. 

"When  did  you  arrive?"  was  Winifred's  first  question  after 
the  greetings  were  over. 

"The  day  before  yesterday,"  replied  Gombarov,  who  noted 
a  hurt  gleam  in  her  eyes. 

She  seemed  genuinely  glad  to  see  him,  but  there  was  a 
constraint  on  both  sides.  It  was  evident  that  the  presence 
of  the  stranger  piqued  her.  More  than  an  hour  passed  in 
polite  conversation,  in  which  Mrs.  Gwynne  joined.  And  all 
the  while  Gombarov  and  Winifred  watched  one  another  with 
furtive  looks,  as  if  each  wished  to  ferret  out  some  secret  in 
the  other's  heart.  Again  that  pathetic,  child-like  look  in  her 
eyes,  the  look  that  first  captivated  him;  and  pity,  still  so 
strong  in  him  at  that  period  of  his  life,  responded  to  it  with 
a  helpless  attraction.  But  she  had  so  determinedly  and  so 
definitely  forsaken  him  hi  the  hour  of  his  need,  when  he  had 
clung  to  her  with  his  last  oozing  strength,  with  a  faith  which, 
he  had  thought,  would  conquer  her.  He  now  thought  he  saw 
indications  of  her  wanting  him.  He  would  have  given  in;  but 
for  the  stranger  he  might  have  given  in;  but  his  pride  pre- 
vailed. With  a  stiffened  back  and  erect  neck,  he  arose  deci- 
sively, almost  abruptly.  With  him  rose  the  rest  of  the  com- 
pany. Mrs.  Gwynne  discreetly  led  Welsh  into  the  vestibule. 

Left  alone  to  themselves,  Gombarov  and  Winifred  looked 
41 


BABEL 

intently  into  each  other's  eyes;  but  their  manner  was  hesi- 
tating, neither  said  a  word. 

"Well,  good-by,"  said  Gombarov  with  an  effort,  and 
stretched  out  a  hand,  even  while  his  pride  and  his  desire  were 
in  fierce  conflict.  He  must  either  seize  her  in  his  arms,  or 
go  at  once. 

Instead  of  taking  his  preferred  hand,  she  put  her  own  hand 
on  his  arm,  softly.  He  felt  her  hand  tremble  on  his  arm,  and 
his  whole  body  responded  to  this  tremor.  He  felt  the  iron 
with  which  he  had,  with  great  effort,  infused  his  back,  oozing 
out  of  him.  He  could  resist  much,  but  the  touch  of  her  hand 
had  always  thus  acted  upon  him.  Nevertheless,  he  resisted 
his  desire,  and  controlling  his  voice  as  well  as  he  could,  said 
at  last: 

"Well?" 

"Aren't  you  coming  to  see  us  again?" 

Her  hand  lingered  on  his  arm,  hesitant,  trembling. 

"  'Us?' " 

"Me,  then." 

"Tomorrow?" 

"Early,  if  you  like." 

"Is  ten  too  early?" 

"No,  come  at  ten." 

"All  right.    At  ten." 

"Ill  expect  you." 

"I'll  come.    At  ten." 

"At  ten    .    .    ." 

So  much  they  could  say  in  trembling  voices.    They  could 

have  gone  on  reiterating  the  word  "ten,"  as  if  ten  were  a 

symbolic  figure,  a  delicious  figure  tinkling  like  a  joy-bell. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  door,  in  the  vestibule,  Welsh's  voice 

42 


A  MEDLEY 

was  persuasively  chanting  to  Mrs.  Gwynne  of  the  glories  of 
Paris,  of  his  expert  knowledge  of  them. 

It  was  indiscreet  to  linger.  Winifred's  fingers  slid  gently 
down  Gombarov's  arm  and  released  it,  while  he,  moving 
towards  the  door,  looked  back  and  repeated: 

"At  ten    .    .    ." 

And  the  inevitable  response  came  back: 

"At  ten    .    .    ." 

He  found  his  hat,  shook  hands  with  Mrs.  Gwynne,  and  left 
with  his  now  thoroughly  irritating  shadow,  who  passed  by 
the  name  of  Alfred  Welsh,  "Alf "  for  short,  "Welsher"  for  long, 
by  which  name,  though  Gombarov  did  not  then  know  it,  his 
ardent  companion,  with  good  reasons,  was  known  among  his 
London  acquaintances. 

Once  hi  the  street,  he  heard  his  companion's  voice  droning 
alongside  of  him.  He  was  thinking  with  the  front  of  his  head ; 
Welsh's  remarks  were  coming  in  somewhere  at  the  back  of  it. 
He  was  thinking: 

"At  ten  tomorrow  .  .  .  And  now  it's  half  past  five; 
to  be  precise,  twenty  past.  That  means,  there's  sixteen  hours 
and  forty  minutes  to  wait.  It's  a  long  time  .  .  ." 

Somewhere  at  the  back  of  his  head  he  was  conscious  of 
Welsh's  words  effecting  an  entrance;  these  were  stealthily 
working  their  way  through  the  back  passages  of  the  brain 
towards  the  front  ...  It  was  a  full  two  minutes  before 
he  automatically  felt  impelled  to  echo  Welsh's  words. 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  said,  "a  splendid  girl  ...  a  splendid 
girl  ...  " 

Now  their  thoughts  had  reversed  positions:  his  own  thoughts 
at  the  back  of  his  head  went  on  reiterating  with  hammer-like 
beats:  "What's  that  to  you?  What's  that  to  you?  The 
impudence  of  you!"  But  these  thoughts  remained  unuttered. 

43 


BABEL 

"She  doesn't  know  French,"  persisted  Welsh,  oblivious  of 
his  companion's  preoccupation.  "Do  you  think  Miss  Gwynne 
would  like  to  take  French  lessons?" 

"Do  you  mean  by  the  Morgenstern  method?"  asked  Gom- 
barov,  as  he  looked  straight  at  Welsh. 

Welsh's  face  flushed,  and  Gombarov  knew  that  his  question 
went  home.  The  allusion  was  to  a  little  colloquy  that  had 
passed  between  them  at  Naples,  when  his  new  acquaintance, 
in  a  good-fellowish  mood,  had  boastingly  confessed  of  having 
an  Italian  mistress. 

"She  is  a  pupil  of  mine.  I  am  teaching  her  English.  I 
got  her  as  my  mistress  by  the  Morgenstern  method." 

"The  Morgenstern  method?    What  do  you  mean?" 

"Well,  you  are  an  innocent!"  Welsh  laughed.  "You  see," 
he  proceeded,  "this  method  teaches  a  language  by  means  of 
objects.  I  say  to  my  pupil,  This  is  a  table.'  This  book  is 
on  the  table.'  'I  walk  to  the  table.'  'I  touch  the  table,'  and 
so  on,  and  so  on.  Then  a  day  must  come  when  you  touch 
upon  the  features  of  anatomy.  You  say,  'This  is  an  arm.' 
'This  is  a  foot.'  'This  is  the  head.'  'The  hair  is  on  the  head.' 
'You  have  two  eyes.'  'The  pretty  nose  is  between  two 
blue  eyes.'  'Here  are  the  lips'  .  .  .  Now,  do  you  get 
me?" 

Yes,  Gombarov  had  understood  him  thoroughly.  It  had 
been  superfluous  for  Welsh  to  add: 

"When  you  come  to  the  lips,  you  come  to  the  universal 
language." 

Welsh,  wincing  under  Gombarov's  exposure  of  his  intentions, 
hastened  to  say: 

"Miss  Gwynne  is  a  nice  girl,  and  I  merely  wanted  to  be 
useful  to  her." 

44 


A  MEDLEY 

"Oh,  I  know,"  retorted  Gombarov,  "but  I  assure  you  they 
are  poor,  and  haven't  any  money  to  spare  for  lessons." 

"Who  spoke  of  money?"  said  Welsh,  flaring  up.  "You 
needn't  remind  me  of  the  money  I  owe  you.  Ill  pay  up." 

"But  you  promised  me  some  when  you  got  to  Paris." 

"I've  forgotten  to  show  you  the  wire  I  got  from  my  brother 
in  London,  today.  Here  it  is,"  and  he  pulled  out  a  crumpled 
telegram  from  his  pocket. 

Gombarov  read: 

"Borrow  from  friend.    Will  pay  in  London.    William." 

Gombarov  plainly  showed  his  chagrin,  and  said: 

"Frankly,  Alf,  I  haven't  any  more  money  to  spare.  I  have 
lent  you  six  or  seven  pounds,  and  have  stood  for  a  good  many 
of  your  meals.  That's  a  lot  of  money  to  me.  I've  been 
putting  my  pennies  by  for  years  to  come  to  Europe,  and  1 
shall  need  every  penny  I've  got  if  I'm  to  stay  a  while.  It 
wasn't  right  of  you  at  Venice  to  buy  a  Venetian  shawl  and 
other  trinkets  out  of  the  money  I  lent  you  for  your  journey. 
Because  I  bought  the  same  things  is  no  excuse.  And  now  you 
tell  me  that  the  money  you  expected  from  your  brother  is  not 
coming.  Ill  help  you  if  you  go  to  London  at  once.  I  can't 
do  more." 

"Don't  you  worry.  111  pay  you  hi  London,"  said  Welsh, 
in  a  hurt  way. 

Meal  time  was  approaching.  He  was  contemplating  the 
vision  of  a  sole  fried  in  butter,  an  entrecote  with  mashed 
potatoes  and  asparagus,  pancakes,  a  bottle  of  wine,  and  a  black 
coffee  and  brandy  liqueur  to  wind  up  with — and  afterwards, 
perhaps,  a  visit  to  a  cafe,  or  even  to  a  cabaret. 

As  for  Gombarov,  now  lost  in  silence,  he  was  thinking  of 
Winifred  and  wondering  what  the  hour  of  ten  next  morning 
45 


BABEL 

held  for  him.  He  would,  of  course,  have  to  get  rid,  somehow, 
of  his  dogging  friend. 

Gombarov  did  not  sleep  that  night,  but  gave  himself  up  to 
wakeful  dreaming.  Idyllic  visions  of  Winifred  came  to  him, 
draped  and  undraped  visions  of  love,  images  serene  and  flutter- 
ing. In  his  bed,  at  the  other  end  of  the  room,  Welsh  snored. 
Gombarov  cursed  those  snores,  though  it  was  not  these  which 
kept  him  awake.  He  cursed  them,  the  loud,  the  ugly,  for 
breaking  in  upon  the  music  that  for  the  short  while  sang  in  his 
soul,  for  violating  the  beautiful.  And  he  asked  himself  the 
question  that  he  had  asked  before  and  would  ask  again:  Why 
was  there  seldom  long  peace  for  the  beautiful,  why  must  it  be 
broken  by  obtrusive  ugliness,  the  eternally  violative?  Was 
it  that  beauty,  perfection,  is  nearly  always  frail,  vulnerable; 
the  barbaric  nearly  always  strong,  aggressive;  and  there  is 
infinite  attraction  in  brutish  forces  towards  frailty?  Yet  he, 
too,  for  all  his  pulsating  sense  of  beauty,  had,  at  times,  the 
barbarian  awaking  in  him,  when  Winifred's  frailty  inspired 
in  him  an  intense  desire  for  undisputed  possession,  that  he 
might  crush  her  in  his  arms  and  destroy  her  utterly;  a  frequent 
mood  which  flamed  intenser  since  the  day  he  had  surrendered 
to  frailty's  small  white  hands,  which  had  hurt  him  so. 

During  these  past  months  of  his  foresakenness,  he  had  done 
everything  to  smother  this  ravishing  flame  that  had  turned 
upon  him  and  was  consuming  him.  In  spite  of  much  effort 
he  could  not  forget  those  first  days  of  sharp  ache  which  fiercely 
played  upon  every  nerve;  then  its  subsidence  into  a  monoto- 
nous half-deadened  pain,  like  a  dulled,  eternal  toothache,  never 
quite  stilled,  ever  throbbing  at  the  roots,  spasmodically  break- 
ing out  in  fiercer  torments,  louder  crescendos  of  despair, 
ceaseless  in  their  calling  for  fresh  balms,  ointments  of  forget- 
fulness.  These  pains  awakened  other,  older  pains,  the  born 
46 


A  MEDLEY 

pains  of  the  Semite,  the  acquired,  accumulated  pains  of  his 
childhood  on  Russia's  dreamy  woodland,  and  the  nightmare 
pains  forced  upon  him  from  his  tenth  year  onward  in  an 
American  industrial  city,  the  to  him  fantastic  man-created 
inferno,  though  it  bore  over  its  portals  the  ironic  inscription, 
The  City  of  Brotherly  Love,  that  had  seduced  the  Gombarovs, 
had  seduced  many.  The  practically  parentless  days  at  home; 
the  sleepless,  comfortless  nights  as  a  newsboy;  the  dull,  aching 
weeks  and  months  as  a  factory  hand;  the  absurdly  conde- 
scending days  and  nights,  stretching  into  months  and  years, 
as  an  office  boy;  the  dragging  years  of  enduring  while  he  rose 
to  the  responsible  position  of  sub-editor  on  the  New  World; 
all  the  pains  of  those  too  long  years  had  come  to  a  head  when 
Winifred  forsook  him.  Winifred,  with  her  small,  frail  hands, 
might  have  saved  him,  but  she  had  forsaken  him;  and  he, 
urged  by  this  last  circumstance,  bolted  his  prison,  but  to  find 
himself  in  the  endless  corridors  of  the  world,  now  reflected  in 
his  awakened  maze-like  mind. 

Oddly  enough,  with  it  all,  he  was  one  of  those  child-like 
persons,  in  whom  hope  blazes  anew  on  the  slightest  provoca- 
tion. Life  may  betray;  but  he  went  from  betrayal  to  betrayal, 
anticipating  betrayal,  yet  hoping  that  at  last  he  might  alight 
where  there  was  no  betrayal.  His  was  a  fatalism  that  did 
not  shut  out  hope,  and  his  logic  did  not  exclude  faith. 

Thus,  with  his  descending  and  ascending  thoughts,  he  spent 
the  long  night,  after  his  meeting  with  Winifred  in  Paris;  and 
in  his  pendulating  between  lugubrious  memories  and  thoughts 
of  Winifred's  returning,  he  did  not  take  the  latter  assumption 
for  granted,  but  prayed,  even  while  Welsh  snored,  that  the 
miracle  he  had  repeatedly  asked  for  might  come  to  pass.  At 
eight  o'clock  he  rose,  quite  hectic,  hardly  tired. 

An  hour  afterward  Welsh  opened  his  eyes,  and  looked 

47 


BABEL 

wonderingly  at  Gombarov,  now  dressed  in  his  best  suit  and 
arranging  his  wing  tie. 

"What's  up?"  he  asked,  suspiciously. 

"I'm  going  out  to  breakfast.  I  have  an  appointment  at 
ten." 

"When  will  you  be  back?" 

"I  don't  know  .  .  .  But  if  you  are  short  of  cash  for 
meals  I  can  let  you  have  a  little."  And  Gombarov  handed 
Welsh  a  ten-franc  note. 

"I  suppose  it's  that  girl.  .  .  ."  said  Welsh  insinuatingly, 
picking  up  the  note. 

"Well,  what  if  it  is?" 

"Oh,  I've  just  mentioned  it.  There's  no  harm  in  that,  is 
there?" 

Gombarov  made  no  reply.  He  hunted  in  his  suit-case  for 
a  handkerchief;  then  put  his  grey  felt  hat  on  and  walked  out. 

He  finished  breakfast  by  half-past  nine  and  spent  twenty 
minutes  in  strolling  up  and  down  the  Boulevard  Montparnasse, 
counting  the  minutes  as  before  he  had  counted  the  hours.  The 
last  ten  minutes  he  devoted  to  her  street,  waiting  impatiently 
for  the  church  clock  round  the  comer  to  strike.  Again  and 
again  he  pulled  out  his  watch,  which  went  on  ticking,  steadily, 
much  too  steadily,  "Yes — no!  Yes — no!  Yes — no!"  wholly 
unresponsive  to  the  eager,  too  eager,  beats  of  his  heart.  Which 
it  was  to  be,  he  did  not  yet  know.  Only  a  nicker  in  her 
eyes,  a  slight  momentary  flicker,  as  she  had  laid  her  hand  on 
his  arm,  encouraged  him  to  believe  that  she  was  wanting  him. 

At  last  the  incredibly  loud  peals  of  the  church  clock  came 
down  on  his  fluttering  heart;  swooped  down  with  a  flapping 
as  of  broad  wings,  scattering  the  flocks  of  moments  that  had 
beset  him  with  their  fretful  clamour.  He  gathered  courage, 
and,  his  body  all  taut,  entered  the  open  door  of  the  house 
48 


A  MEDLEY 

and  walked  up  the  narrow  stairs.  He  stopped  on  the  first 
landing  and  struck  hard  with  the  antique  brass  knocker  under 
the  figure  3.  He  heard  the  scurrying  of  light,  slippered  foot- 
falls; and  soon  the  door  opened  slightly.  Winifred's  small 
dark  head  came  half  peering  from  behind  it,  like  a  veiled 
Arabian  girl's. 

"Is  that  you,  John?"  came  the  familiar  deep  tones,  which 
played  on  his  heart,  as  they  had  played  when  he  first  met 
her,  so  long,  long  ago.  "Come  in!" 

"Have  you  had  breakfast?"  asked  Mrs.  Gwynne.  "I  sup- 
pose you  have.  We  are  just  having  ours.  Have  a  coffee!" 

Over  coffee  they  exchanged  notes  of  their  journeys. 

"When  I  was  in  Niirnberg.  .  .  ."  Mrs.  Gwynne  would 
often  begin,  to  be  followed  by  Gombarov's  "Now,  when  I  was 
in  Florence.  .  .  ."  Winifred  would  burst  out  laughing  each 
time  this  was  done,  and  tease  them  about  it. 

"The  funniest  thing  on  this  side  are  the  women,"  once 
ventured  Winifred,  who  spoke  little.  "In  German  trains  it 
was  quite  a  common  thing  to  see  a  woman  put  a  hand  on  a 
man's  knee  or  shoulder,  as  if  to  assert  her  possession,  while 
the  man  as  often  as  not  sat  stolidly,  reading  a  newspaper, 
or  stuffing  sandwiches  or  sausages  into  his  mouth." 

"I  suppose  there  is  a  lot  to  shock  American  women  on  this 
side,"  said  Gombarov.  "There  is  Naples,  to  mention  an 
instance.  In  Naples,  the  public  conveniences  for  men  are 
very  public,  indeed.  And  there  are  similar  annoying  things. 
In  my  pension  at  Rome  I  heard  some  American  club  women 
and  school  teachers  talking  about  it  at  the  next  table.  They 
all  agreed  that  it  would  be  a  great  thing  to  have  Naples  at 
Hoboken,  New  Jersey,  or  at  Reading,  Pennsylvania,  for  just 
one  wee  little  week,  so  they  could  have  the  time  of  their  lives 
'cleaning  it  up'!" 

49 


BABEL 

"Mother,  you  see,  he  is  sarcastic  as  ever." 

"Yes,  Winnie.  That  was  a  Gombarovian  remark.  Hell 
never  be  cured." 

They  all  laughed.  He  liked  being  teased  by  them,  as  he 
had  been  of  old,  when  they  yet  loved  him.  And  he  would 
go  out  of  his  way  to  give  them  every  chance. 

"Have  you  been  to  the  Louvre?"  asked  Winifred. 

"Yes,"  replied  Gombarov,  "and  I  heard  a  fat  American 
in  front  of  Ingres'  Le  Bain  Turc,  say  to  his  friend:  'A  pretty 
hot  bunch,  isn't  it?' " 

"Go  on  with  your  tales,"  laughed  Winifred.  "Mother,  he 
is  being  funny  this  morning." 

"What  picture  is  that?"  asked  Mrs.  Gwynne,  who  could 
not  quite  see  the  joke. 

"Oh!"  exclaimed  Winifred.  "It's  that  one  showing  a  lot 
of  naked  women — a  couple  of  dozen  or  more — lying  about 
like  a  heap  of  serpents." 

"Oh  yes!     I  know  the  one!"  and  Mrs.  Gwynne  laughed. 

"As  you've  already  been  to  the  Louvre,  where  would  you 
like  to  go  this  morning?"  asked  Winifred.  "Have  you  been 
to  the  Luxembourg,  or  to  Notre  Dame?" 

"No,  shall  we  take  them  in  today?" 

They  decided  to  see  the  Luxembourg  first,  Notre  Dame 
afterward.  Mrs.  Gwynne  smiled  on  them  as  they  went  out. 

Winifred,  never  demonstrative  in  public,  took  his  arm; 
which  augured  well.  On  the  way,  they  spoke  about  everything, 
except  that  which  was  uppermost  in  their  minds.  At  the 
Luxembourg  they  spent  an  hour  in  seeing  and  discussing  the 
pictures.  But,  as  when  they  first  met,  their  eyes  and  their 
intonations  gave  their  most  irrelevant  remark  a  significance 
beyond  that  of  ordinary  language. 
50 


A  MEDLEY 

Silence,  tense  and  pregnant  with  emotion,  has  its  own  audi- 
bleness,  louder  than  any  spoken  speech,  and  grows  more  and 
more  audible  the  longer  it  remains  untranslated  into  speech; 
even  as  a  gathering  cloud  goes  on  and  on  gathering,  until  it 
bursts  with  its  own  pent-up  gatheredness.  Silence,  again,  is  a 
slow,  patient  music  of  one's  soul,  playing  on  harps  and  flutes, 
and  rising  in  a  sudden  crescendo  in  the  wild  beating  of  the 
no  longer  controllable  tympani.  Talk  may  dissipate  in  talk; 
silence,  too  long  repressed,  urges  to  action. 

The  inevitable  happened  at  Notre  Dame.  They  had  climbed 
up  the  innumerable  stairs  to  the  roof.  They  propped  up 
their  elbows  on  the  parapet,  near  the  gargoyles,  and  together 
with  these  leaning  grotesques,  looked  down  on  that  most  seduc- 
tive courtesan  among  cities,  stretched  out,  supine,  in  all  her 
grace  of  natural  and  studied  loveliness.  Far  in  the  distance, 
the  Sacre  Coeur  gleamed  white;  while  below,  the  Seine 
appeared  like  an  arrested  wind-flung  scarf,  alight  with  the 
shimmering  playfulness  of  the  sun.  Paris  needed  no  more 
than  this  diaphanous  garment  of  golden  mist  to  clothe  her 
shining  torso;  her  charm  was  intenser  for  her  deshabille,  to 
which  the  sun  had  brought  her;  the  sun  her  lover,  who  un- 
loosed her  draperies,  for  whom  she  smiled.  Her  temperament 
was  frank,  Gallic;  her  mystery  concrete,  precise.  Who, 
having  seen  a  day  in  the  spring,  in  Paris,  could  live  to 
forget  it? 

Gombarov  lost  himself  in  the  contemplation  of  all  this 
beauty,  and  of  the  grotesque  beauty  of  the  sharply  denned 
gargoyles  against  the  clear  light,  and  of  the  ideal  beauty  of 
Winifred's  small  dark  bared  head  against  the  neighbouring 
old  beauty.  She  stood  leaning  over  the  parapet,  in  her  white 
dress,  her  hat  in  her  hand.  Her  black  hair  was  closely  ser- 
pented  around  her  head  in  two  circling  coils,  the  ends  of  which, 

51 


BABEL 

with  great  art,  were  arranged  shield-like  over  her  ears.  Again 
he  noted  the  half-childish,  the  half-womanish  charm  of  her 
profile;  in  his  admiration  he  quite  forgot  the  suffering  she 
had  caused  him. 

"Isn't  it  beautiful?"  she  murmured. 

"Yes,  very  beautiful,"  he  replied. 

"We  can  go  still  higher,  if  you  like." 

"Can  we?    Yes,  let's  go  higher." 

She  rearranged  her  hat  on  her  head,  and  went  to  the  woman 
attendant,  who  sat  on  a  soap  box;  and  said  something  to  her 
in  hesitating  French. 

The  woman,  with  keys  dangling  in  her  hand,  went  before 
them,  towards  a  little  door,  leading  to  the  tower.  This  she 
unlocked,  and  Gombarov,  putting  a  silver  coin  in  her  hand, 
entered  in,  and  followed  Winifred  up  a  narrow,  incredibly 
dark  stone  staircase. 

"Be  careful!"  Winifred  called  down  to  him.  "It's  pitch 
dark  here,  the  stairs  are  somewhat  rickety;  it's  quite  easy 
to  take  a  false  step." 

"Don't  say  that!"  he  called  out  laughingly  from  below, 
as  he  felt  his  way  along  the  wall. 

He  heard  Winifred's  contralto  laugh,  echoing  down  to  him. 
He  increased  his  pace,  in  spite  of  the  darkness,  but  she  seemed 
to  be  as  far  away  from  him  as  before. 

"Be  careful!"  she  flung  down  to  him. 

"I'm  trying  to  keep  close  behind  you,"  said  Gombarov,  "so 
that  in  case  you  slip,  you'll  have  something  to  fall  on!" 

"You'll  have  to  do  better  than  that,"  laughed  Winifred, 
double-edgedly. 

"I  am  ready  to  do  better  than  that!"  he  retorted,  and 
increased  his  pace  just  as  the  first  ray  of  sunlight  fell  on  a 
slant,  lighting  up  a  part  of  the  stone  wall  and  stairs.  His 
52 


A  MEDLEY 

head  was  now  on  a  line  with  her  ankles;  when  he  saw  her 
emerge  in  the  light,  it  showed  her  slender  legs  through  the 
flimsy  material  of  her  white  dress.  The  sight  caused  his 
playfulness  to  flare  up  into  passion.  For  it  was  a  love  playful- 
ness, which  is  ever  a  prelude  to  love  passion,  even  as  in  the 
golden  age  when  the  satyr  chased  his  nymph  round  and  round 
a  tree. 

He,  too,  emerged  into  the  light,  dazzling  after  that  darkness. 
They  both  laughed,  panting  with  the  exertion  of  the  climb. 
Notwithstanding  this  laughter,  he  noted  a  frightened  look  in 
her  eyes,  and  felt  the  same  look  creep  into  his.  And  unaccount- 
able bonds  held  back  his  impassioned  arms  from  her.  She 
took  off  her  hat,  rested  her  head  on  one  side  on  the  parapet; 
while  he  stood  by,  leaning  his  head  on  his  elbows,  and  looked 
down  on  the  city,  furtively  watching  Winifred  at  the  same 
time.  His  hands  twitched  with  desire.  And  yet  he  was  as 
helpless  as  if  he  had  never  loved  before,  as  if  he  had  just  met 
her  and  loved  her  for  the  first  time.  It  was  really  worse,  as 
she  had  loved  him  before  and  had  forsaken  him.  And  now  he 
was  not  sure  of  her.  Just  a  shade  of  pride  crept  into  this 
renewed  love  of  his;  this,  too,  held  him  in  check,  as  he  sud- 
denly remembered  her  forsaking  him.  A  medley  of  civilised 
emotions  played  on  him,  and  hindered  him  from  acting  on  his 
natural  impulses.  Could  these,  his  heritage  of  the  Russian 
woods,  have  broken  his  bond,  shattered  this  complex  network 
of  inhibitions,  his  naturalness  might  have  frightened  her.  He 
had  her,  too,  to  think  of;  as  she,  even  more  than  he,  was 
held  by  fast  bonds,  wrought  by  several  generations,  beginning 
with  her  hard  New  England  ancestors.  He  was  hardly  less 
conscious  of  her  bondage  than  of  his  own;  that  also  hin- 
dered him. 

53 


BABEL 

Just  as  he  was  preparing  to  act,  just  as  he  was  painfully 
raising  an  arm  to  encircle  her  waist,  a  sound  of  laughter  came 
up  from  the  staircase;  and  presently  a  young  couple  emerged 
and  joined  them  at  the  parapet.  Gombarov's  arm,  partly 
lifted,  dropped  back  to  where  it  had  been. 

Once  more  their  voices  struggled  on  in  inconsequent  conver- 
sation;  but  in  their  hearts  and  minds  deep  streams  of  silence 
ran,  bearing  their  unspoken  feelings  and  thoughts.    Now  these 
streams  had  become  rapids,  and  at  last  they  beat  down  with 
a  pressure  as  of  high  water  falling  upon  stones.    Outwardly 
their  voices  languidly  rambled  on: 
"How  beautiful!" 
"Yes,  beautiful!" 

Then,  some  minutes  later,  their  downgoing  began,  he  leading, 
she  following. 

They  exchanged  a  few  remarks  in  tremulous  voices;  then 
were  plunged  into  darkness  and  silence.  Gombarov  walked 
slowly,  with  fast  beating  heart,  while  his  hot  hands  felt  along 
the  stone  wall. 

"John!"  he  heard  his  name  called. 
"Yes!" 

"Are  you  there?" 
"Yes,  here  is  my  hand." 

She  was  two  or  three  steps  above  him  when  their  hands  met. 
As  he  held  her  hand  and  felt  it  burning  in  his,  he  waited 
until  she  was  on  the  same  level  with  him.  Then,  at  the  very 
instant  that  his  arm  encircled  her  waist  and  tightened  into  an 
iron  ring,  he  felt  her  bared  arms  clasp  his  neck,  and  her  head 
fall  on  his  breast.  He  drank  in  the  delicious  scent  of  her  hair; 
then  raised  her  head  between  his  hands;  their  lips  met  and 
flowed  together,  hotly,  like  molten  metals.  And  their  impas- 
sioned limbs  drew  together,  thigh  to  thigh,  knee  to  knee,  ankle 
54 


A  MEDLEY 

to  ankle;  until  they  reeled  as  one  person  towards  the  wall 
of  that  dark  blessed  tower,  whose  medieval  stones  must  before 
this  have  sheltered  many  lovers  from  the  outer  glare,  would 
doubtless  shelter  more  in  time  to  come. 

"If  stones  could  speak "  But  no,  these  stones  would 

never  speak;  if  they  should  give  utterance  at  all,  it  would 
be  to  sing;  out  of  that  tower  might  issue  a  melody  to  over- 
whelm the  earth.  Of  lovers  dead  and  living,  of  love  undying. 
Was  it  this  that  overcame  them  in  that  tower:  a  sense  of  exac- 
tion, perhaps,  on  the  part  of  the  imprisoned  spirits  of  many 
lovers,  who,  having  exacted  in  the  past,  would  go  on  exacting 
their  tribute  from  living  lovers:  ardent  kisses,  utter  aban- 
donment to  passion,  and  deprivation  of  all  shame?  Shame- 
lessly, in  that  tower,  they  clung  to  one  another;  shamelessly 
Winifred  drew  his  head  deeper  and  deeper  down;  shamelessly 
his  lips  seemed  to  be  sinking  deeper,  deeper,  into  hers;  with 
a  shameless  frenzy,  that  came  of  long  hunger,  he  clutched  at 
her  with  hungry  hands;  at  her  virgin  breasts,  which,  small, 
firm  and  round,  of  a  living  silken  texture,  seemed,  under  his 
hands,  to  be  filling  with  a  warm  suffusing  wine,  until  his 
fingers  flowed  together  with  them  in  a  delicious  liquid  warmth. 
His  hands  were  drunken  by  contact  with  her;  while  she  panted 
under  the  onslaught  of  their  fused  passions. 

"I  am  so  happy.  .  .  ."  she  murmured. 

"I  love  you,  I  love  you.  .  .  ."  he  went  on  reiterating. 

"I  hate  clothes.  .  .  ."  she  gasped  at  one  moment. 

"What  a  sweet  nest  for  kisses!"  said  he,  his  hand  in  her 
bosom.  He  tried  to  touch  her  breasts  with  his  lips,  while  she 
pressed  his  head  closer  to  her. 

Had  the  walls  of  the  old  dark  tower  closed  round  them, 
then  and  there,  it  would  have  been  a  sad  but  beautiful  thing,  a 
classic  story,  something  to  write  a  poem  about.  .  .  .  Gom- 
55 


BABEL 

turov  was  curiously  conscious  of  this,  even  in  the  midst  of 
his  passion.  It  seemed  to  him  that  if  he  died  then  and  there, 
he  would  not  have  cared.  The  spiritual  sense  appeared  to  be 
transcended  together  with  the  physical,  was  inseparable  from 
it.  The  coals  of  love  kindled  with  a  two-coloured  flame,  and 
its  fumes,  as  of  some  finely  distilled  incense,  made  his  light- 
ened head  go  round  as  in  space,  in  ether. 

But — and  who  doubts  that  our  whole  realistic  life  is  founded, 
precisely,  on  this  "But"? — it  was  at  such  a  moment  of  intense 
living  that  they  heard  obtrusive  voices  and  footsteps  drawing 
slowly  nearer  from  below.  A  feminine  voice,  with  a  New  York 
twang,  was  saying: 

"Can't  they  afford  electric  lights?" 

A  patient  masculine  voice  replied: 

"My  dear,  you  know  they  are  a  little  behind  the  times  on 
this  side." 

"I  shouldn't  call  it  exactly  a  little,"  replied  the  woman. 
"And  who's  going  to  pay  you  damages  if  you  break  your 
neck?" 

"Break  your  neck,  damn  you!"  whispered  Gombarov.  "Ill 
pay  the  ten  centimes." 

"Shh.  .  .  ."  whispered  Winifred.  "They  might  hear  you." 
And  she  put  a  hand  over  his  mouth. 

He  filled  the  bowl  of  her  hand  with  little  staccato  kisses. 

"I  say,  Charlie,"  went  on  the  shrewish  voice  from  below, 
"haven't  you  brought  your  electric  flash?  I  guess  not!  Just 
like  you  to  forget  to  bring  it  the  one  time  we  need  it." 

"How  did  I  know  that  we  were  going  to  strike  this  hole?" 
said  the  man.  "Wait  a  moment,  and  I'll  find  a  match." 

The  pair  paused  on  the  stairs.  The  woman's  voice  ram- 
bled on: 

"What  does  the  Baedeker  say  about  this  dark  hole?  Is 
56 


A  MEDLEY 

this  one  of  those  places  where  one  of  them  fine  queens  met  her 
foolish  lover,  who  later  got  a  dose  of  lead  for  his  pains?  Has 
anyone  ever  been  strangled  here?" 

"I  shouldn't  be  surprised,  Mabel,"  replied  the  man  good- 
naturedly.  "It's  a  lovely  place  for  a  murder,  sure  enough. 
But  hang  it,  I  can't  find  a  match!  I  guess  we'll  have  to  do 
without  it." 

The  pause  gave  Winifred  an  opportunity  to  put  herself  in 
order,  and  she  and  Gombarov  began  to  exchange  common- 
place remarks,  to  let  the  intruders  know  of  their  presence. 
While  the  newcomers  were  brushing  past  him,  Gombarov  was 
thinking  of  the  irony  of  intrusions:  last  night  Welsh's  snores; 
to-day  this  banal  couple,  who  desired  to  violate  the  old  tower 
with  electric  lights. 

Once  lost,  the  world  of  ecstasy  in  which  they  had  lived  those 
passionate  moments  was  not  to  be  regained,  and  so  they  went 
down,  hand  in  hand,  mute.  Now  the  silence  was  of  another 
kind;  it  was  the  silence  after  the  worst  of  a  cloud-burst,  which 
had  not  wholly  spent  itself.  The  light  dazzled  them;  stirred 
in  them  mingled  feelings  of  joy  and  pain  and  shame,  and  their 
thoughts  were  as  dissipating  clouds,  suffused  with  sunlight, 
spotted  with  black  and  gold,  and  mobile  with  patches  of  light 
and  shade.  For  some  time  neither  could  speak,  or  even  look 
at  the  other.  The  sense  of  shame,  that  came  of  a  passion 
unconsummated,  held  them;  but  neither  was,  perhaps,  aware 
of  this,  the  true  cause  of  their  confusion;  both  had  studied 
in  the  school  of  self-control,  an  admirable  institution  for  folk 
of  petty  tempers  and  petty  passions  with  little  to  control. 

The  days  which  followed  on  those  aching  months  were  for 
Gombarov  as  beautiful  lyrics,  spoilt  now  and  then  by  bad 
lines.  As  a  single  bad  line,  or  unsuited  word  in  a  poem  can 
pull  one  up  with  an  unpleasant  jerk,  so  a  single  unworthy 

57 


BABEL 

phrase,  or  unfitting  word  from  the  lips  of  his  goddess  could 
spoil  the  effect  of  all  the  beauty  and  tenderness  she  lavished 
on  him.  Unfortunate  words  had  a  way  of  sticking  in  his 
memory  and  of  acting  on  his  spirits  and  on  the  beauty  she 
appeared  to  impart  to  him  like  a  corrosive  chemical,  which 
disintegrated  not  only  the  gift  but  also  him  upon  whom  it  was 
conferred. 

There  was  that  occasion  at  the  Caje  de  la  Paix,  when  she 
expressed  a  comprehension  of  women  who  could  maintain 
relations  with  five  or  six  lovers.  Again,  there  was  the  evening 
they  spent  at  the  Russian  Ballet,  when  they  went  into  an 
ecstasy  over  Nijinsky  in  the  "Spectre  of  a  Rose"  and 
"Scheherazade,"  only  to  have  the  mood  subjected  to  a  cold 
douche  upon  Winifred  seeing  the  gorgeously  dressed  women 
issuing  out  of  the  theatre  after  the  performance  and  entering 
the  sumptuous  cars  which  waited  for  them.  A  few  moments 
before  she  had  been  supremely  happy,  but  now  the  three  of 
them — her  mother  was  with  them — gloomily  fought  their  way 
through  the  waiting  crowd  of  opulent  if  flimsily  dressed 
women,  some  of  them  gilt-shoed  and  gilt-stockinged,  nearly 
all  low-corsaged,  revealing  from  under  scarves  rich  patches 
of  white  skin;  splendid  shoulders  were  here  and  indiscreet 
breasts,  and  pleasant  little  valleys  were  visible  between  the 
breasts;  fat,  bejewelled  dowagers  and  matrons  were  also  here, 
in  tight-fitting  gowns,  which  outlined  their  unwieldy  shapes 
and  rounded  promontories,  producing  the  effect  of  bodies 
poured  into  the  garments.  White-shirted,  monocled  cavaliers, 
in  shining  top  hats  and  broad  black  cloaks,  accompanied  the 
women,  and  followed  them  into  the  carriages,  the  doors  of 
which  were  opened  and  shut  by  smart  flunkeys  in  livery  and 
business-like  chauffeurs.  One  smelt  money  here;  above  all 
the  overpowering  odour  of  sex.  One's  glance  caught  this  and 
58 


A  MEDLEY 

that:  a  possessive  man  here;  a  possessed  woman  there;  and 
the  possessed  was  not  less  proud  than  the  possessor.  Whither, 
whither,  rolled  away  that  yellow,  finely-rounded,  palanquin- 
like  motor  carriage,  into  which  a  middle-aged,  monocled  satyr 
had  conducted  a  red-stockinged,  dark-haired,  white-skinned 
girl,  his  many -ringed  hand  resting  on  her  waist?  "A  satyr, 
if  there  ever  was  one!"  thought  Gombarov.  "But  a  satyr 
must  be  rich  nowadays,  if  he  is  to " 

He  did  not  finish  his  thought,  but  with  a  sick  heart  watched 
the  shadow  that  crept  into  Winifred's  face.  He  was  too  well 
aware  of  the  cause  to  ask  her  why  it  was  there  or  to  offer  con- 
solation. He  was  simply  helpless. 

"Damn!"  broke  from  Winifred's  lips. 

"That's  not  nice  of  you,  Winnie.  .  .  ."  began  her  mother. 

"I  don't  care!"  exclaimed  Winifred.  "It's  all  very  well  for 
you  and  John  to  talk.  But  I  like  fine  dresses,  a  motor  car 
to  take  me  to  a  nice  supper  at  some  cabaret,  then  to  a  nicely 
furnished  flat,  where  I  can  have  my  own  maid  to  help  me 
undress." 

"The  last  is  a  service  I  should  perform  with  great  pleasure," 
thought  Gombarov,  bitterly,  without  humour.  He  said  aloud: 
"How  do  you  propose  to  get  all  this?" 

"How?  How  do  other  women  get  these  things?  I  suppose 
I  can  also  sell  myself  to  some  millionaire.  You  think  me 
pretty,  don't  you?" 

"If  John  didn't  know  you,"  interrupted  her  mother,  "he'd 
think  I  hadn't  brought  you  up  properly." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,"  asked  Gombarov,  "that  you  would 
be  willing  to  live  with  that  roue  who  was  with  the  girl  in 
the  red  stockings?" 

"Why  not?"  retorted  Winifred.  "I  thought  him  quite  nice. 
And  he'd  give  me  everything." 

59 


BABEL 

"Yes,  and  he  would  expect  everything!" 

"That's  enough,  children,"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Gwynne.  "Let 
her  alone,  John.  She's  just  upset.  She  doesn't  mean  any- 
thing she  says." 

"Yes,  I  do,  mother!" 

Gombarov  felt  far  from  reassured.  It  was  not  altogether 
Winifred's  attitude  that  upset  him.  This,  to  be  sure,  was 
discouraging  enough.  But  how  was  he  to  explain  his  own 
thoughts  and  feelings?  He  was  no  better  than  she.  At  all 
events,  not  in  the  mood  he  was  in  then.  The  after-theatre 
scene  had  infected  him  also.  When  he  saw  the  roue  enter 
the  motor  car  with  the  exquisite  creature  in  the  red  stockings, 
he  was  seized  with  bitter  envy,  and  his  heart  burned  with 
alternate  sadness  and  fierceness;  he  had  to  confess  to  himself 
that  at  that  moment  he  would  not  have  minded  at  all  chang- 
ing places,  provided  the  woman  was  Winifred. 

That  "provided"  was  important.  So  sorely  had  his  love 
and  constancy  been  tried  that  this  appeared  to  be  the  one 
remaining  thread  that  held  him  to  the  world  of  his  integral 
self,  woefully  sinned  against  by  that  other  world,  into  which 
circumstance  threw  him.  Well,  it  was  more  than  a  thread. 
It  was  a  rope,  as  strong  and  taut  as  a  rope,  upon  which  his 
integral  self  performed  the  arduous  role  of  a  rope  walker.  If 
he  fell!— but  he  did  not  fall,  not  yet! 

Nevertheless,  there  was  undoubtedly  the  danger  to  which 
this  integral  self  was  exposed  in  the  very  act  of  balancing,  by 
the  diversion  of  its  eyes  to  the  alluring  appeal  of  worldly  life; 
of  beautiful  women,  attired  beautifully;  of  sensuous  pleasures, 
to  be  enjoyed  bountifully. 

"Integral  self!"  These  were  his  own  words;  but  what, 
precisely,  was  this  integral  self?  He  defined  it  as  that  essen- 
tial part  of  himself,  which  having  lived  the  first  ten  formative 
60 


A  MEDLEY 

years  in  the  Russian  woods,  still  clung  by  its  roots  there; 
that  is  to  say,  he  was  in  his  heart  of  hearts  a  simple  natural 
being  having  simple  natural  desires:  to  have  a  roof  over  his 
head,  a  chance  to  pursue  his  chosen  work,  and  a  woman, 
which  is  every  man's  inalienable  right. 

On  second  thought,  he  was  bound  to  admit  a  deep  dis- 
satisfaction with  his  definition,  which  did  not  quite  explain 
those  predilections  of  his  for  worldly  things,  especially  for 
femininity  wrapt  in  the  seductive  entanglements  of  lace  and 
silk,  necessitating  unravelling,  as  of  sacred  mysteries.  He 
had  suffered  too  much,  too  recently,  to  see  clearly;  his 
draught  of  freedom  had  been  short;  he  had  not  had  time 
to  adjust  himself,  to  think  out  his  case.  All  he  knew  was  that 
he  was  at  war  with  himself ;  that  there  was  hardly  a  thought, 
a  mood,  an  emotion,  which  was  not  contradicted  by  another. 
One  day  he  had  jotted  down  his  case  in  the  following  wise 
in  his  Diary: 

"KNOW  THYSELF" 

I  am  a  Jew,  a  Russian,  an  American. 

My  race,  my  native  soil  and  the  country  of  my  adoption 
strive  in  me  for  conciliation. 

Strange:  when  I  hear  a  famous  mediaeval  synagogue-chant 
to  words  by  Jehudah  Halevi,  I  long  inexplicably  for  Jerusalem. 
When  I  listen  to  the  Volga  folk  song,  I  am  a  Russian,  and 
wish  myself  back  in  Russia.  When  I  read  Walt  Whitman  and 
think  of  the  future,  I  feel  myself  an  American,  and  take  a 
pride  in  it. 

Yet  God  knows  why  all  these  years  I  have  been  aspiring 
to  London,  which  I  have  not  even  seen.  Is  it  love  of  the  word? 
The  universality  of  Shakespeare? 

I  like  to  think  a  man's  thoughts  of  a  home,  wife  and  children; 

yet  the  audacious,  the  adventurous  and  thought  of  foreign 

lands  I  have  not  seen  attract  me  equally.    And  why  should  the 

thought  of  living  in  tents,  with  a  caravan,  and,  in  intervals, 

61 


BABEL 

this  intense  longing  pursue  me   to  ride  a  swift  horse  in  the 
desert,  dressed  as  an  Arab? 

Women  attract  me,  both  kinds:  the  chaste,  chastely  outlined 
women  of  Holbein;  and  the  shining,  sinfully  fleshly  women  of 
Felicien  Rops.  "A  woman  is  either  a  prostitute  or  a  mother." 
said  a  French  writer.  Oh,  for  a  woman  who  is  both  in  one! 

There  is  a  seductive  sensual  dignity  in  black  and  white, 
and  flaunting  oriental  colours  take  one  by  storm;  and  there 
is  pleasure  in  both. 

How  is  one  to  reconcile  the  monk  and  roue  in  self?  Is  the 
roue  merely  a  degenerate  satyr,  once  noble,  now  chasing  his 
nymph  round  a  tree  the  leaves  whereof  must  need  be  golden 
dollars?  It  is  a  problem  to  reconcile  the  satyr  part  of  one's 
nature  with  an  empty  purse. 

It  is  equally  a  problem  to  reconcile  the  desire  to  write  books 
with  the  desire  to  live  the  life  that  makes  books.  When  Rim- 
baud joined  a  caravan  he  stopped  writing. 

In  the  midst  of  passionate  loving  I  stop  to  analyse,  and 
analysing,  I  go  on  loving;  which  is  a  contradiction. 

Are  all  these  threads  I,  or  is  there  one  especial  thread 
among  them  that  is  my  true  self?  If  the  latter,  how  is  it  to 
be  disentangled  from  the  others?  If  the  former,  is  it  possible 
to  take  all  these  discordant  threads  and  weave  a  single  harmo- 
nious pattern  from  them? 

I  do  not  know  myself. 

Was  he  no  more  than  a  confused  medley  of  conflicting  emo- 
tions, a  series  of  clashes  as  irreconcilable  as  fire  and  water? 
These  antithetical  elements,  thus  curiously  set  out  hi  his  con- 
fessional catalogue,  by  no  means  all:  were  these  potentialities, 
emanations  of  his  integral  self,  hitherto  repressed,  or  were 
they  no  more  than  deep  reflections  of  an  outer  world  upon 
his  sensitive  lake-like  surfaces,  in  which  the  reflections  gained 
an  intenser  reality  than  the  objects  reflected?  Or  was  he  a 
kind  of  gramophonic  disk,  which,  sensitized  by  suffering  and 
experience,  was  capable  of  gathering  onto  itself  and  recording 
the  voices  of  its  proximity,  voices  harmonious  or  querulous, 
62 


A  MEDLEY 

vulgar  or  full  of  refined  nuance,  as  the  case  may  be,  now  war- 
ring among  themselves?  Apart  from  these  possibilities,  was 
another:  his  intense,  flaming  curiosity  about  life,  but  he  had 
no  walls  of  thick  skin  to  protect  him  from  its  dangers:  flaming 
with  his  thousand  desires,  his  whole  being  was  burning, 
though  he  knew  it  not,  sacredly;  and,  like  Moses'  bush,  he 
was  not  consumed.  There  was  torment  in  this,  and  much 
enduring,  and  he  had  not  the  consolation  of  the  knowledge 
that  came  to  him  later,  of  the  chemical  processes  of  these 
fierce  unending  flames,  disintegrating  and  refining,  melting 
and  fusing,  finally  reintegrating,  conciliating  all  his  conflicts 
and  discords,  bringing  a  measurable  peace  and  moulding  his 
face  into  a  reasonably  detached  if  undetachable  mask,  sig- 
nificant in  its  expression  of  acceptance  of  life  and  all  its  divine 
and  diabolic  adventure. 

"  'Know  thyself'!— That  is  the  hardest  thing  in  life,"  was 
the  further  entry  he  had  then  made  in  his  Diary,  adding: 
"But  one  can  only  suspect  oneself." 

His  suspicions  concerning  himself,  based  on  certain  frag- 
mentary particulars  of  his  knowledge,  made  him  conjecture 
the  causes  of  Winifred's  discontent  as  quickly  as  his  own. 
To  offset  his  waverings,  there  was  his  oak-like  staunchness, 
rooted,  in  spite  of  all  temptations  and  discouragements,  in  his 
unreasonable  love  for  Winifred.  It  was  true  that  at  Florence, 
before  Winifred  had  come  back  to  him,  he  had,  in  a  moment 
of  despair,  departed  from  the  path  of  chastity.  He  was  sick 
at  heart,  because  of  his  passionate  longing  for  the  love  he 
had  lost.  A  little  Florentine  courtesan,  who  turned  out  to 
be  a  Parisienne,  had  led  him  through  the  attractive  winding 
streets,  and  within  the  sight  of  the  Giotto  Tower  took  him  to 
a  house  kept  by  a  German  woman;  where,  in  a  bed  manu- 
factured at  Lynn,  Massachusetts,  doubtless  by  Puritan  hands, 
63 


BABEL 

he  surrendered,  not  without  qualms,  his  virginal  flame.  He 
could  speak  neither  French  nor  Italian;  she  neither  English 
nor  Russian;  yet  they  found  no  difficulty  in  understanding  one 
another.  She  simulated  true  love  gracefully,  was  his  long- 
lost  Francesca;  while  he  played  the  part  of  a  make-believe 
Paolo,  and  departed,  feeling  a  man  for  the  first  time  in  his 
unhappy  life,  so  full  of  deprivation.  Afterwards,  he  yearned 
more  than  ever  for  Winifred,  and  began  to  understand  the 
danger  of  stirring  banked-up  fires.  Only  when  Winifred  had 
come  back  to  him  did  he  regret  what  he  had  done. 

He  was  sorry  for  her  when  he  saw  her  wanting  the  fine 
things  she  had  seen  on  other  women,  and  full  of  pity  for  her, 
and  angry  at  his  own  helplessness.  He  resented  those  people; 
their  presence  served  to  remind  him  of  a  truth,  by  no  means 
new  to  him;  of  money  as  a  factor  in  happiness.  If  the  noble 
satyr  came  to  earth  again,  to  live  his  life  he  would  have  to 
be  a  millionaire;  and  money  degraded  the  satyr,  deprived  him 
of  his  nobility  and  made  him  a  mere  roue.  Why,  if  he  had 
their  money,  instead  of  going  back  to  his  lonely  bed  in  that 
wretched  hotel,  he'd  now  be.  ...  and  it  was  terrible  to  think 
that  money — bits  of  paper  and  gold — had  this  extraordinary 
power  over  men's  lives,  his  life.  He  walked  along  between 
Winifred  and  her  mother  in  a  silent  rage,  and  was  several 
times  on  the  point  of  saying  that  he  would  give  her  up,  as  he 
had  not  enough  money  to  make  her  happy.  But  there  was 
that  other  thought:  that  he  could  not  live  without  her. 

The  next  day,  in  quiet  submission,  she  laid  a  hand  on  his 
arm,  and  said: 

"Forgive  me,  dear.  I  was  wicked  last  night  to  want  those 
things.  I  want  only  you,  you  alone.  Those  things  do  not 
matter.  We  shall  be  happy  without  them,  won't  we?" 

"It  was  I  who  was  wicked,"  he  replied.  "There  was 
64 


A  MEDLEY 

a  moment  last  night  when  I  wished  I  were  that  roue 
with  the  monocle,  and  you  the  girl  in  that  auto  with  me." 

"But  if  you  looked  like  that,"  she  said,  laughing,  "I  wouldn't 
love  you."  The  last  remark  of  his,  however,  stuck  in  her 
mind  and  led  to  the  question: 

"Have  you  ever  been  to  another  woman?  .  .  .  You  know 
what  I  mean." 

"No!"  he  replied,  and  wondered  whether  she  had  marked 
the  slight  tremor  in  his  voice. 

"When  are  you  going  to  marry  me?"  she  asked. 

"As  soon  as  I  can  earn  enough  to  support  you  properly." 

"When  will  that  be,  John?  You  are  earning  only  a  little 
by  your  articles.  You  are  going  to  a  strange  city,  where  you 
will  lead  the  precarious  life  of  an  author.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  some  day  you  will  do  big  things.  But  by  the  time  you 
can  earn  enough  to  support  us  both,  we  shall  be  old  people, 
you  and  I.  You  are  thirty — or  is  it  thirty-one?  And  I  am 
twenty-two.  And  things  being  as  they  are,  I  may  be  only 
a  drag  on  you.  .  .  .  Perhaps,  we  had  better  part,  after 
all.  ...  I  shall  never  love  anyone  but  you.  And  I  must  go 
on  with  my  art.  I  must  do  something  to  support  mother. 
She  has  supported  me  long  enough  by  journalism,  which  she 
hates." 

This  sort  of  thing  paralyzed  him.  He  might  chuck  it  all, 
or  he  might  plead.  He  .wanted  to  do  "the  right  thing,"  the 
strong  thing.  But  he  did  not  know  whether  to  give  it  up  or 
wholly  surrender  to  love  was  the  stronger.  Impulses  cut 
through,  thoughts  entangle.  Experience  alone  can  ultimately 
decide  for  natures  possessing  one  and  the  other  in  equal 
measure. 

Heart  said  to  him:  "Chuck  it,  young  man.  Go!  Haven't 
you  had  enough  of  this?  She  has  forsaken  you  once,  and 

65 


BABEL 

you  are  no  longer  sure  of  her,  never  will  be  sure  of  her." 

Mind  said  to  him:  "Stay,  young  man,  plead  with  her.  You 
are  a  nice  lover,  to  give  up  at  the  least  sign  of  weakening  on 
the  part  of  her  you  love.  More  than  once  you  have  been 
accused  of  being  cautious.  Throw  all  caution  to  the  wind. 
Only  in  that  way  can  you  show  that  you  are  capable  of  love. 
She  will  see  how  you  can  love!  You  will  conquer  her  by  the 
greatness  of  your  love.  If  you  do  not,  you  will,  at  all  events, 
satisfy  yourself.  You  will  have  no  regrets  at  having  left  a 
stone  unturned.  Look  at  herl  Is  she  not  a  nice  thing  to 
hold  in  one's  arms?  A  real  prize,  eh?  Do  you  like  the  idea 
of  anyone  else  holding  her  in  his  arms?  Maddening,  isn't  it, 
the  mere  thought  of  it?" 

He  no  longer  knew  which  was  speaking,  mind  or  heart. 
Mind  and  heart,  each  singing  its  song,  had  joined  in  a  duet, 
and  at  last  found  a  voice  on  his  tongue. 

"Winnie,"  he  pleaded,  "you  are  not  going  to  give  me  up 
now,  after  all  these  years,  just  as  I  am  going  to  London,  not 
knowing  a  soul  there?  Think  of  it!  I  shall  be  one  of  seven 
million  there.  I  shall  need  you  more  than  ever.  The  thought 
of  you  will  give  me  strength  to  make  my  way.  I  have  only 
you  in  this  world,  and  if  you  forsake  me,  where  shall  I  be?" 

"You  put  a  great  responsibility  on  me!" 

"That  may  be  true.  At  the  same  time  no  man  will  ever 
love  you  as  I  have  loved  you.  Can  you  afford  to  cast  away 
great  love?  It  never  comes  twice." 

"You  want  to  tie  me  down." 

"But  I  tie  myself  down  also.  I  don't  ask  from  you  what 
I  can't  give  myself.  If  we  will  love  each  other  only  strongly 
enough,  everything  will  come  round  all  right.  But  if  I  am  not 
sure  of  you,  nor  you  of  me,  then  we  may  as  well  part  now, 
as  you  say." 

66 


A  MEDLEY 

The  last  sentence  came  from  him  almost  involuntarily.  He 
had  not  intended  to  say  it;  but  there  it  was,  it  had  come 
from  him,  a  decisive  word,  implying  a  decision,  forcing 
another. 

"No,  no!"  exclaimed  Winifred,  putting  a  hand  on  his  arm. 
"I  cannot  afford  to  let  you  go.  Why  do  you  let  me  talk  like 
this?  I  have  been  wicked.  Why  do  you  let  me  be  wicked? 
You  have  been  very  dear  to  me.  .  .  ." 

And  they  embraced  one  another  in  reconciliation.  Matters 
went  very  well  with  them  for  days,  during  the  rest  of  his  stay 
in  Paris.  Nevertheless,  the  old  feeling  recurred  at  intervals: 
the  feeling  awakened  by  that  memory  of  her  having  forsaken 
him  once.  He  was  not  sure  of  her. 

ON   SPONGING   FOR   ART*S    SAKE 

Every  new  contact  with  his  new  life  brought  to  Gombarov 
a  sense  of  adventure;  every  new  experience  brought  exhilara- 
tion; and  he  delved  into  the  mysteries  of  the  human  minds  he 
met  on  the  journey,  as  other  men  delved  into  deep  forests.  In 
spite  of  the  circumstances  of  his  life,  limiting  his  activities,  he 
spent  many  happy  days  during  that  spring  in  Paris,  snatched 
them  from  Life  as  one  snatches  who  is  unaccustomed  to  either 
freedom  or  happiness. 

Luckily  for  him,  his  travelling  companion,  Welsh,  withdrew 
his  presence.  Two  days  after  his  colloquy  in  the  hotel  bedroom 
with  Welsh,  he  came  in  to  find  Welsh  packing. 

"If  you  don't  mind,"  Welsh  explained,  "111  be  getting  out. 
I  have  found  an  old  pal  from  London.  He  has  a  studio  here 
with  a  spare  bed.  I  shall  stay  with  him  for  a  week,  then  we 
are  going  on  to  London,  where  we  will  take  a  studio  together." 

"Of  course,  I  don't  mind." 

"Let's  have  an  evening  together — you  and  Rugger  and  me," 


BABEL 

suggested  Welsh,  "and  have  dinner  somewhere,  if  you  are  not 
otherwise  engaged."  He  laid  peculiar  emphasis  on  the  last 
phrase.  He  added:  "Rugger  is  an  awfully  nice  chap.  I've 
told  him  about  you,  and  he  wants  to  meet  you." 

"Of  course,  with  pleasure!" 

The  three  of  them  met  one  evening  at  a  restaurant. 

Rugger  appointed  himself  host  and  master  of  ceremonies. 
"I  say,"  he  addressed  Welsh,  whom  he  found  useful  as  inter- 
preter, "tell  Frenchie  that  we  want  a  real  Yankee  cocktail  to 
start  with;  we'll  have  Russian  caviare  to  follow;  then  some 
Italian  minestrone;  a  bit  of  French  sole  after  that;  then  a 
John  Bull  rump  steak  and  chips;  as  for  drinks,  what  would 
you  chaps  rather  have:  Munich  beer,  Chianti  or  a  Burgundy, 
or  a  white  wine?  And  we  can  end  up  with  a  Scotch,  a  Strega 
or  a  Benedictine." 

After  they  had  decided  on  their  international  menu,  they 
began  to  talk.  Art,  food,  women,  particularly  Parisian  women, 
were  the  usual  topics  discussed  between  gulps  and  munchings; 
and  when  they  came  to  coffee  and  liqueurs,  Rugger  suddenly 
turned  to  Gombarov: 

"So  you  are  going  to  London?" 

Gombarov  nodded. 

"For  a  holiday?" 

"Oh  no!    To  try  my  hand  as  an  author." 

Rugger  whistled. 

"Any  income?    You  don't  mind  my  asking?" 

"Only  what  I  can  earn  by  journalism." 

Again  Rugger  whistled. 

"Any  friends  there?" 

"No." 

Once  more  Rugger  whistled. 

"Any  introductions?" 

68 


A  MEDLEY 

"No." 

For  the  fourth  time  Rugger  whistled. 

"I  suppose  you  left  a  good  job  behind  you?" 

"Yes,  it  was  good  for  life." 

"And  how  old  are  you  now?" 

"Thirty-one." 

Rugger  whistled  for  the  fifth  time. 

"Why  do  you  whistle?"  asked  Gombarov.  "Surely,  there's 
nothing  astonishing  in  all  that?" 

"I  am  whistling,  old  man,  because  I  can't  sing,"  said  Rugger, 
in  a  friendly  tone.  "If  I  could,  I'd  sing  a  paean  of  praise  to 
you.  Why,  man,  you've  got  the  pluck  of  a  war  horse.  I 
wouldn't  do  what  you  are  doing,  not  for  all  the  expectations  in 
the  world.  If  it  weren't  for  the  small  allowance  I  get  from 
home,  I'd.  .  .  .  But  tell  me,  what  made  you  pick  on  London 
of  all  places?  Why,  man,  London  is " 

Welsh  interrupted:  "I  don't  see  that  it's  any  more  remark- 
able than  what  I  have  done.  After  all,  I've  managed  by  my 
own  efforts  to  pull  through  two  years  at  Naples." 

"Yes,"  retorted  Rugger,  "but  you  went  to  an  appointment 
there  at  the  Morgenstern  school.  In  other  words,  you  had  a 
job  waiting  for  you  to  fall  into." 

"But  it  didn't  pay  much,"  said  Welsh,  somewhat  nettled. 

"That  may  be  true,"  went  on  Rugger,  "but  spaghetti  is 
cheap.  And,  according  to  your  own  account  you  gave  private 
lessons,  in  which  your  knowledge  of  the  method  helped  you 
to  get  other  things  that  man  stands  in  need  of."  And  Rugger 
winked  significantly.  He  added:  "And  it  cost  you  nothing!" 

Gombarov  caught  the  wink,  and  understood  the  implication. 
His  face  broadened  into  a  smile. 

"Oh  that!"  exclaimed  Welsh.  "I  gave  her  some  English 
lessons  in  exchange." 


BABEL 

Rugger  and  Gombarov  burst  into  a  guffaw. 

"Yes,  I've  often  heard,"  went  on  Rugger,  when  the  laughter 
had  subsided,  "that  sleeping  with  a  book  was  the  best  way 
of  learning  a  language,  but  I  have  been  always  under  the 
impression  that  it  was  the  other  way  'round,  that  the  man  did 
the  learning,  that  the  book  was  constantly  in  need  of  renewing 
its  expensive  bindings,  and  that  it  was  up  to  the  man  to  pay 
for  them." 

"It's  all  very  well  for  you  to  talk,  Ruggy,"  said  Welsh. 
"You  have  some  sort  of  income,  to  start  with.  And  though 
you  may  be  short  sometimes,  yet  you  can  go  on  working  at 
your  painting  without  worrying  that  tomorrow,  or  the  day 
after,  the  chucker-out  will  come  and  throw  your  goods  out  into 
the  street.  How'd  you  like  that?  I  am  an  artist,  and  I  have 
not  the  means  to  go  on  with  my  art.  I  am  a  man,  and  I  have 
not  the  means  to  get  me  a  woman  in  the  ordinary  way.  In 
the  old  days  an  artist  had  a  patron;  and  once  he  had  his 
patron,  he  had  his  art  and  his  model,  and  as  often  as  not  a 
model  served  as  a  wife  as  well.  The  world  owes  the  artist  a 
living,  and  since  nowadays  it  doesn't  give  it  to  him,  he  must 
take  it  where  he  can  find  it.  He  must  live  on  his  fellowmen, 
and  he  must  use  cunning  to  get  himself  a  woman." 

"On  the  whole,  I  am  inclined  to  agree  with  you,"  said 
Rugger. 

"Well,  I  am  not,"  said  Gombarov.  "It  seems  to  me  that 
an  artist  and  his  life  are  one,  and  if  he  permits  himself  loose 
principles  in  his  life,  they  will  get  into  his  art  also." 

"Art  and  life  have  nothing  to  do  with  one  another,  in  spite 
of  Tolstoy,"  exclaimed  Welsh.  "A  man  may  ravish  a  woman, 
then  go  home  and  write  a  poem  on  the  beauties  of 
chastity." 

"That  is  quite  illogical!"  argued  Gombarov. 
70 


A  MEDLEY 

"On  the  contrary,"  said  Welsh,  "nothing  is  more  logical. 
An  artist  applies  the  whole  of  his  logic  to  his  art.  Nothing 
after  all,  is  more  illogical  than  life,  which  doesn't  give  the 
artist  a  chance  to  carry  on  his  art.  Look  at  the  'nineties  in 
England,  and  the  number  of  artists  killed  by  life,  because  they 
didn't  have  enough  sense  to  live  by  their  wits.  Look  at  Villon, 
burglar  and  cut-throat,  who  wrote  fine  poetry.  Well,  I  intend 
to  keep  going  by  any  means,  fair  or  foul.  I  don't  intend  to 
in  a  factory,  to  keep  someone  else  in  luxury.  I'd  rather 
tramping  the  country  like  Gorky's  heroes  than  submit  to 
a  machine." 

Gombarov  was  nonplussed.  He  had  always  believed  that  a 
man  and  his  art  were  one;  he  still  believed  that;  yet  his 
sense  of  justice  could  not  but  admit  that  the  facts  upon  which 
Welsh  had  based  his  philosophy  of  life  were  incontrovertible. 
This  admission  was  disconcerting  to  his  faith  in  his  own  moral 
;egrity,  as  he  realised  that  its  possession  was  a  doubtful  asset 
an  artist  having  to  struggle  for  mere  existence.  For  the 
being  he  lost  pride  in  his  possession,  and  a  terrible  fear 
in  his  soul  as  to  his  fitness  to  aspire  towards  authorship 
a  strange  city,  a  place  of  peopled  vastness,  where  one  man 
•e  or  one  man  less  was  of  no  matter.  There  was  this  new 
to  reconcile  in  himself;  there  was  the  need  to  reconcile 
apparently  irreconcilable:  the  artist  in  the  man,  the  man 
the  artist. 

The  responsibility  he  had  assumed  in  going  to  London  began 
weigh  upon  him  as  he  approached  the  city  of  his  seven-year 


BETWEEN  A  SLEEP  AND  A  SLEEP 

After  that  strange  dream,  out  of  which  seemed  to  come  that 
of  memories,  Gombarov  at  last  tired  himself  out  thinking 

71 


BABEL 

of  the  extraordinary  episodes  of  his  three  months'  journey. 
There  was  no  disentangling  the  essential  thread  from  among 
them.  Instead,  his  thoughts  went  on  ceaselessly  rolling  out 
as  from  a  many-coloured  skein  and  getting  themselves  hope- 
lessly involved  in  a  denser  tangle  of  phantasmic  images.  With 
his  growing  tiredness,  these  became  more  and  more  blurred, 
and  at  last  faded  into  nothingness.  He  was  asleep.  And  he 
had  another  dream. 

With  him,  as  always,  to  dream  was  to  wake  in  another 
world,  a  world  not  dissimilar  from  our  own,  yet  essen- 
tially a  world  of  alert  penetrations,  of  concentric  lightnings, 
which  reveal  starkly  some  islanded  truth;  while  all  else  is 
plunged  in  a  sea  of  darkness,  obliterated  from  consciousness. 
Ever  since  Gombarov  began  his  wanderings  he  had  been  sub- 
ject to  such  dreams,  curiously  symbolic  in  character,  and,  if 
he  did  not  go  astray  in  his  interpretations,  hinting  at  some 
undefined,  latent  force  in  him,  hitherto  sleeping  and  now 
awakening.  And,  acting  as  with  a  mystic  yet  firm  assurance, 
these  dreams  gave  encouragement  in  his  struggle,  urged  him 
on.  They  were,  or  were  to  become  later,  as  Greek  choruses, 
commenting  on  his  life,  impelling  him  to  his  destiny. 

He  dreamt  he  was  walking  on  hot  sands  by  the  sea,  in  a 
lost,  aimless  way.  It  was  an  intensely  arid,  sunny  day;  and 
as  he  walked  he  remembered  having  earlier  in  his  life  lived 
through  just  such  a  day.  There  was  nothing  but  the  sand- 
dunes  and  the  marshes  and  the  sea,  and  there  was  no  place 
to  take  shelter  from  the  hot  sun.  He  was  alone,  and  his 
solitude  was  the  intense  solitude  of  dreams.  And  blinding  as 
the  sunlight  was  the  hopelessness  of  his  soul,  and  it  shrivelled 
up  in  him  all  thoughts  but  one,  all  desires  but  one.  That 
which  he  thought  and  desired  must  be  done.  That  had  been 
irrevocably  decided;  and  he  walked  about  as  one  already  dead, 
72 


A  MEDLEY 

yet  seeking  death.  And  suddenly,  there  appeared  at  his  side, 
from  he  knew  not  where,  a  young  man,  an  unhappy  acquaint- 
ance of  his  youth,  who  years  ago,  had  striven  to  be  an  artist, 
and  been  driven  by  circumstances  to  take  his  own  life;  and 
this  man  walked  beside  him  as  one  already  dead.  Gombarov 
walked  beside  this  man  trustingly,  for  the  man  was  aware  of 
his  desire  and  was  there  to  help  him  consummate  it.  And 
quite  suddenly,  still  walking  on  the  arid  sands,  they  came 
to  an  aqueduct  of  several  arches,  and  each  arch  was  smaller 
and  lower  than  the  other.  Curiously  enough,  as  one  looked 
through  the  openings,  no  light  came  from  them;  either  the 
arches  were  very  deep,  or  else  they  were  shut  in  at  the  other 
end.  "Here  is  a  good  place,"  Gombarov's  companion  seemed 
to  say,  pointing  to  one  of  the  smaller  arches.  "Just  go  in 
there,  and  wait.  Once  the  sea  starts  coming  in  .  .  ."  Even 
before  the  man  could  finish  his  sentence,  the  sandy  beach  had 
ceased  to  exist,  and  Gombarov  was  projected  forward  with 
the  turbulent  tide  through  the  opening  of  the  arch.  He  found 
himself  swimming  in  a  heavy,  rough,  black  water,  in  a  kind  of 
twilight,  under  the  arch,  and  his  companion  was  at  his  side. 
"I  am  lost,"  thought  Gombarov,  swimming  hard,  though  he 
had  never  swam  in  the  sea  before,  and  a  great  desire  came 
upon  him  to  live.  Great  black  waves  carried  him  on  and  on, 
and  it  was  night,  but  the  stone  arch  was  no  longer  above  his 
head.  At  some  distance  in  front  of  him,  a  curious  little  pier 
jutted  out,  all  lit  up,  a  tiny  island  of  light,  which  seemed  to 
have  no  connection  with  anything  on  earth.  Would  he  ever 
reach  it?  Stranger  still,  as  he  got  nearer  there  appeared  to 
be  a  lit-up  office  on  the  pier,  and  several  young  women  were 
sitting  on  a  double  row  of  high  chairs,  as  if  working  over 
figures.  When  he  had  scrambled  up  the  pier  and  hands 
reached  out  to  pull  him  up,  he  suddenly  felt  the  absence  of 
73 


BABEL 

his  companion.  He  stood  up,  firm  on  his  feet,  and  realized 
that  he  was  full  of  sea  water.  One  of  the  two  young  women 
who  had  pulled  him  up  attached  a  mechanical  contrivance  to 
his  mouth,  and  presently  the  water  came  pouring  out,  forming 
a  large  pool  on  the  plank  floor.  He  turned  a  smiling  face 
towards  one  of  his  savers,  an  attractive  young  woman,  who, 
he  observed  for  the  first  time,  was  dressed  in  a  white  bathing- 
suit  edged  with  blue;  she  smiled  at  him,  and,  looking  at  the 
pool  of  water,  said:  "Well,  I've  never  seen  anyone  take  in  so 
much  water  and  live."  Then  everything  turned  to  a  red  haze, 
and  he  woke  with  a  start,  the  loud  clamour  of  a  bell  ringing 
in  his  ears. 

LON-N-N DON-N-N-N 1 

The  church  bell  round  the  corner  was  ringing,  and  its  tones, 
ascending  and  descending,  poured  themselves  out  with  a  meas- 
ured reasonance,  full  of  tuneful  clamor,  and  fell  in  broad 
waves,  half  gay,  half  sombre,  round  Gombarov;  prolonged 
dinning  followed  stroke  on  stroke  of  the  male  bell  hammer, 
as  his  elated  skirted  spouse,  responding  to  her  consort's  com- 
mand, full-throated  droned-moaned  her  doleful-joyful  song, 
which  sounded  on  Gombarov's  ears: 

"Lon-n-n don-n-n-n /  Lon-n-n don-n-n-n / 

Lon-n-n don-n-n-n / 

"Lon"  on  the  up  stroke,  "don"  on  the  down;  a  short  din- 
ning between,  a  long  and  deeper  after. 

All  of  a  sudden,  it  dawned  on  the  half  awake  Gombarov 
that  that  was  the  day  on  which  he  was  starting  for  London. 

Manfully  came  the  triumphant,  clamorous  strokes  of  the 
bell  and  their  frightening,  wavering  refrain: 

"Lon-n-n don-n-n-n /  Lon-n-n don-n-n-to / 

Lon-n-n don-n-n-n /" 

He  was  sensitive  after  his  sleep,  and  the  sounds  touched 
74 


A  MEDLEY 

him  as  if  he  were  a  sounding  board.  They  impenetrated  him 
from  head  to  foot,  insinuated  themselves  into  his  every  nerve, 
and  he  reverberated  with  them.  He  was  frightened  at  their 
song,  which  filled  him,  lifting  him  and  letting  him  down.  It 
acted  upon  him  as  a  sudden  and  overwhelming  crescendo  of 
feeling  after  a  prolonged  adagio;  he  knew  that  on  that  evening 
he  would  consummate  a  seven-year-old  desire.  It  was  as  if, 
while  looking  into  a  mirror,  he  had  suddenly  and  unpremedi- 
tatingly  caught  a  vision,  as  yet  a  shadow,  of  loveliness,  peeping 
into  the  glass  over  his  shoulders,  a  vision  he  had  not  seen  before 
and  was  longing  to  see. 

London,  he  was  too  well  aware,  had  had  her  many  lovers — 
artists  and  poets — and  who  was  he,  coming  with  empty  hands, 
with  no  ready  gift  but  the  yearning  of  his  love?  But  this 
yearning  he  was  bringing  from  afar,  unquestioning,  without 
even  having  seen  his  love.  All  his  knowledge  of  her  was  such 
as  he  had  got  from  books,  pictures  and  hearsay;  above  all, 
he  was  sharply  aware  that  Shakespeare  had  trod  her  stones. 
If  these  things  had  whetted  his  appetite,  he  was  even  more 
strongly  conscious  of  a  deeper  longing.  He  did  not  know 
whence  it  came,  but  it  had  nothing  to  do  with  explicable 
surface  incentives.  He  only  knew  that  he  was  being  urged, 
driven,  lashed  on!  But  suddenly  faced  with  the  fact  of 
being  near  the  place  of  his  desire,  he  was  frightened  at  his 
own  presumption,  his  audacity  in  attempting  the  quest. 

"Lon-n-n "  dinned  the  bell  again  on  the  upward  stroke. 

Gombarov's  heart  rising  with  it,  throbbed  to  its  lingering 
tremolo,  full  of  exultant  notes. 

"don-n-n-n "  came  the  downward  stroke,  with  its  ascend- 
ing dinning;  and  down  went  Gombarov's  heart  with  it,  with  a 
faltering  dying,  until  it  reached  its  downmost  depths  of  timor- 
ous resonance. 

75 


BABEL 

The  last  echo  of  the  bell  died  slowly  away. 

Gombarov  looked  at  his  watch.  There  were  still  two  hours 
before  the  train  started.  He  had  packed  his  bag  the  evening 
before,  but  to  control  his  excitement,  he  jumped  briskly  out 
of  bed  and  began  to  dress.  His  movements  were  feverish,  and 
he  cut  himself  shaving.  He  went  to  an  outdoor  cafe  and 
ordered  coffee  and  rolls.  He  followed  this  with  a  liqueur 
brandy,  and  another,  and  another,  to  steady  him.  Then  he 
walked  up  and  down  Winifred's  street,  past  Winifred's  house, 
wondering  whether  she  was  up,  whether  he  might  stop  in  and 
bid  yet  another  farewell.  Or  was  she  asleep,  her  enchanting 
little  head,  its  black  hair  loosened,  buried  in  soft  white  bed 
clothes?  Could  he  but  get  a  glimpse  of  her  thus!  It  was  sad 
to  go  away,  even  to  his  beloved  London,  leaving  her  here. 
He  restrained  his  desire  to  go  in  and  see  her,  and  strode 
energetically  toward  the  hotel. 

UNIVERSAL   SPEECH  OF  HOTEL   ATTENDANTS 

The  concierge  waited  for  him  with  the  hotel  bill  on  an  old 
silver  platter. 

Gombarov  paid  the  bill  and  gave  the  man  a  generous  tip, 
but  the  man  appeared  dissatisfied  and  grumbled  in  French. 
Gombarov  understood  the  nature  of  the  grumbles,  if  not  their 
precise  particulars;  whereupon  the  attendant,  by  means  of  an 
open  hand,  described  in  the  air  a  series  of  heights,  as  of  organ 
stops;  unmistakably  indicating  that  he  was  a  husband,  had  a 
buxom  wife  living — to  judge  by  the  series  of  curves  he  used 
in  describing  her  frontal  and  rear  rotundities — and  was  the 
father  of  five  young  ones.  Gombarov  retaliated  by  drawing 
a  similar  series  of  heights,  going  his  protagonist  three  better. 

The  man  threw  up  his  hands  in  amazement. 

"Oh!    Mais  vous  etes  qu'un  jeune  hommel" 
76 


A  MEDLEY 

"No,  no!"  said  Gombarov,  and  mustered  a  few  French 
words: 

"Pere  .  .  .  mere  .  .  .  jreres  .  .  .  soeurs  .  .  " 
"Ah!  Je  comprends I"  laughed  the  man,  sympathetically, 
and  accepted  two  additional  francs.  And  good-naturedly  he 
seized  Gombarov 's  bag,  which  he  carried  downstairs.  He 
fetched  a  taxi,  without  again  holding  out  his  hand,  and  as  he 
shut  the  taxi  door,  nodded  a  farewell  full  of  comprehension. 

UNIVERSAL    SPEECH    OF    INTERNATIONAL    POLITICS 

At  the  Gare  du  Nord,  Gombarov  found  himself  installed  in 
a  carriage  with  a  young  German,  who  was  reading  Nietzsche's 
Also  Sprach  Zarathustra.  The  latter  circumstance  soon 
led  to  their  entering  into  conversation  and  remaining  com- 
panions until  they  reached  London.  The  man  spoke  perfect 
English. 

"No,  I  don't  think  there  will  be  any  war  between  the 
European  countries;  least  of  all,  between  Germany  and  Eng- 
land, who  need  each  other,  and  are  each  other's  best  customer. 
That  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  all  countries  are  increasing  their 
armaments.  We'd  all  stand  to  lose,  none  to  gain.  Jean  Bloch 
and  Norman  Angell  have  demonstrated  that  pretty  clearly." 

"But  surely  not  all  men  of  ideas  are  opposed  to  war,"  said 
Gombarov.  "There  is  Nietzsche,  who  thinks  only  war  can 
cleanse  our  civilisation.  .  .  .  And  I  am  told  that  there  are 
other  lesser  men  in  Germany  who  write  quite  frankly,  advo- 
cating war." 

"Nietzsche?  Der  ist  ein  ideolog!"  replied  Gombarov's  vis- 
a-vis, breaking  into  German.  "No  one  nowadays  pays  any 
attention  to  ideologists  or  ideas.  Only  realistic  facts  count." 

"They  seem  to,  but  I  am  not  sure  that  it  is  so,"  said 

77 


BABEL 

Gombarov,  and  added,  as  a  sudden  idea  struck  him:  "I  should 
think  it  was  the  other  way  round.  It  is  ideologists  who  never 
pay  any  attention  to  any  one  else.  Rousseau  and  Voltaire 
inculcated  the  ideas  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  who  knew 
at  the  time  Karl  Marx  was  writing  that  his  idea  would  find 
so  many  followers?" 

The  German  looked  at  Gombarov  with  a  new  interest,  but 
said  nothing. 

The  train  was  pulling  into  Victoria. 

"You  must  look  me  up  when  you  are  settled,  and  we  shall 
discuss  the  matter  further,"  said  the  German.  "Here  is  my 
card." 

Gombarov  casually  glanced  at  it.    It  read: 


MR.  HUGO  EBBING, 
Private  Secretary   to  James  Hopper,  M.   P. 


Mr.  Ebbing  observed  Gombarov's  astonished  look.  "Yes," 
he  said,  "I'm  just  from  a  holiday  in  the  Black  Forest,  and  I 
must  be  here,  as  in  a  day  or  two  Parliament  opens." 

UNIVERSAL    SPEECH    OF    LABOUR 

"Where  are  you  putting  up?"  asked  Mr.  Ebbing,  when  the 
train  pulled  in. 

"I  don't  know  yet,"  replied  Gombarov.  "I  shall  look  for 
a  place  in  Russell  Square." 

"Are  you  taking  a  TDUS  or  a  taxi?" 

Gombarov  pondered  for  a  moment.  "A  'bus,  I  think,"  he 
said  in  a  voice  of  indecision. 

"Well,  let  me  put  you  on  the  right  one,"  said  Mr.  Ebbing. 

Gombarov  seized  his  heavy  bag,  and  followed  Mr.  Ebbing. 

Once  outside  the  station,  they  found  a  workingmen's  pro- 
cession in  progress.  Numerous  red  banners  were  carried,  bear- 
78 


A  MEDLEY 

ing  various  inscriptions  in  large  letters,  such  as:  "We  Want  a 
Living  Wage,"  "Solidarity  of  Labour,"  "Workers  of  All  Lands, 
Unite!" 

Gombarov  looked  in  amazement  at  the  strange  procession 
of  straggling  men,  with  hard-worked,  furrowed  faces  and  large, 
blackened  hands;  some  of  them  wore  no  collar,  only  a  kerchief 
round  their  neck;  a  few  had  neither  collar  nor  kerchief,  and 
showed  patches  of  swarthy,  hairy  skin.  There  were  women  in 
the  procession,  for  the  most  part  shabbily  dressed;  all  looked 
grim,  and  none  was  smiling;  even  the  young  showed  symp- 
toms of  fatigue  and  age.  They  marched  silently,  the  evening 
sun  accentuating  the  grimness  of  their  faces;  and  the  crowd 
that  watched  them  was  also  strangely  silent. 

Several  things  astonished  Gombarov:  the  silence,  the  pres- 
ence of  the  red  flag,  the  fatigued,  almost  apathetic  look  of  the 
marching  workmen,  the  apathy  of  the  onlooking  crowd,  all 
impossible  in  the  land  he  had  lately  come  from.  The  whole 
scene  assumed  an  intenser  strangeness  owing  to  the  fact  that 
it  was  plunged  in  the  fantastic  atmosphere  of  evening  daylight. 
It  was  eight  o'clock  of  a  June  evening. 

"They  are  either  striking  or  protesting,"  explained  Mr. 
Ebbing. 

Just  then  a  little  group  which  brought  up  the  rear  began 
to  sing. 

"What  are  they  singing?"  asked  Gombarov,  intensely  inter- 
ested. He  might  have  been  Dante  asking  a  question  of  his 
illustrious  guide  in  the  Inferno. 

"Don't  you  know?"  asked  Mr.  Ebbing  in  astonishment. 
"It's  the  International!" 


79 


BOOK  II 

PUBLICANS,  SINNERS,  SAINTS,  ARTISTS, 
PHILOSOPHERS,  OUTCASTS 

To  Edward  J.  O'Brien 


CHAP.  II:  VARIATIONS  ON  A  SINGLE  THEME 

"Reflection  is  itself  a  turn,  and  the 
top  turn,  given  to  life" 

— SANTAYANA. 

JOY  ON  A  'BUS 

ASSISTED  to  his  'bus  by  Mr.  Ebbing,  Gombarov,  weighed 
down  by  his  bag,  struggled  up  the  narrow  steps  to  the  top 
and  took  the  rear  seat.  He  asked  the  conductor  to  let  him 
down  at  Tottenham  Court  Road,  the  nearest  point  for  Russell 
Square;  then  wholly  gave  himself  up  to  the  sensation  of  seeing 
and  absorbing  London. 

The  great  city  was  at  its  best  in  that  fantastic  evening 
daylight  of  June.  To  him  who  had  not  seen  it  before,  this 
light  was  peculiar;  it  was  neither  of  day  nor  of  night,  neither 
twilight  nor  dawn;  it  was  the  light  of  another  sphere,  where 
spirits  hold  revels  and  dreams  are  born.  So  it  appeared  to 
Gombarov,  delicately  attuned  after  seven  years  of  enduring 
and  waiting,  and  thrice  seven  of  toiling  and  suffering  hi  a 
land  of  violent  contrasts,  to  receive  the  full  charity  of  this 
light,  which  played  upon  his  nerves  and  caused  his  flesh  to 
vibrate  with  quiet  ecstasy,  a  strange  low  music  filling  him  to 
the  tips  of  his  fingers  with  red  resonance  as  of  blood  and  wine. 
He  had  not  yet  seen  the  face  of  London,  but  only  the  radiance 
of  the  face.  Fear  and  misgiving  left  him  for  the  time  being; 
he  had  no  doubt  that  his  bride  was  Dulcinea. 

In  that  light  the  street  lights  were  of  a  silvery  dimness  as 
of  early  stars,  while  the  buildings  in  Victoria  Street  stretched 

83 


BABEL 

on  in  long  lightless  masses,  cliff-like  and  precipitate,  densely 
dark,  fading  into  purple  and  grey.  And  looking  right  and  left, 
to  lose  nothing,  he  caught  sight  of  a  cleft,  and  through  the 
cleft  a  tall  tower,  formidable  and  perpendicular,  like  a  colossal, 
lightless  lighthouse,  aspiring  to  violate  England's  curiously 
low  skies.  That  was  a  strange  thing  he  had  had  time  to  note 
about  the  English  skies;  they  appeared  to  be  so  much  lower 
than  the  American  skies. 

Having  left  Westminster  Cathedral  behind,  the  red  *bus 
almost  noiselessly  glided  on,  darting  in  and  out  of  the  crowded 
traffic,  cunningly  brushing  past  other  red  'buses,  with  a  gon- 
dola-like grace  which  was  incredible;  at  times  no  more  than  a 
hair's  breadth  separated  them.  And  there  were  no  sudden, 
sharp,  shrieking  noises  of  taxi-horns  and  overhead  trains  as  in 
New  York;  but  there  was  a  trembling  and  a  rumbling  in  the 
air,  steady  and  constant,  the  even  breathing  of  modern  life  over 
vast  spaces.  All  the  noises  were  swallowed  up  and  became  as 
one  noise,  vibrant  like  that  of  a  ship's  turbine,  incessantly  throb- 
bing, reduced  to  normal  pulsation,  diffuse  mellowness  of  a  tone 
painting,  in  which  conflicting  colours  take  their  place  without 
quarrelling  with  one  another,  and  none  shrieking.  This, 
Gombarov  had  time  to  observe  before  reaching  the  end  of 
his  journey,  had  its  counterpart  in  the  physical  contours  of  the 
streets,  which  were  curiously  free  from  sharp  abutting  angles 
so  characteristic  of  the  streets  of  the  New  World.  This  round- 
ing of  the  edges  at  street  crossings  enabled  wheeled  traffic  to 
turn  a  corner  without  pulling  up  or  breaking  the  steady  con- 
tinuity of  its  flow.  And  only  the  upraised  hand  of  a  traffic 
policeman  caused  everything  to  stop  and  to  gather  at  a  single 
point  as  at  the  sudden  shutting  down  of  a  canal  lock.  As  he 
watched,  with  fascination,  the  upraised  hand  of  the  immov- 
84 


VARIATIONS  ON  A  SINGLE  THEME 

able  figure,  a  kind  of  symbol,  reductio  ad  absurdum,  of  law 
and  order,  Gombarov  thought: 

"It  must  have  taken  centuries  of  civilisation  to  have  evolved 
this  extraordinary  power  for  an  upraised  hand,  just  as  it  must 
have  taken  centuries  to  have  rounded  off  the  corners  of  Lon- 
don's streets." 

The  growing,  collected  traffic,  consisting  of  taxis,  motor 
'buses  and  drays,  paused  before  the  lone  figure  with  upraised 
hand,  and  throbbed  and  snorted  like  a  single  restless  steed  from 
the  kingdom  of  Brobdingnag.  Then,  after  some  moments,  the 
figure  dropped  its  arm  with  an  automatic  swoop,  as  if  the  arm 
were  a  railway  signal;  and  the  pent-up  traffic  moved  slug- 
gishly on. 

Gombarov  cast  a  lingering  glance  at  the  Abbey,  at  the 
Parliament  buildings,  at  the  vista  of  lights  stretching  across 
Westminster  Bridge,  and  knew  that  he  was  now  traversing 
grey  Whitehall,  the  nerve  centre  of  the  British  Empire.  The 
'bus  ran  on  in  the  broad  avenue,  speedily  and  without  pause. 
He  had  but  time  to  note  the  squat  solidity  of  the  buildings 
and  the  even  continuity  of  their  skyline,  so  different  from  New 
York's  anarchic  silhouettes  at  twilight;  above  all,  there  was 
the  overwhelming  impression  of  stony  greyness,  as  if  the 
buildings  had  been  plunged  into  some  powerful  grey  solution 
and  now  radiated  greyness,  an  effect  which  conferred  on  the 
architecture  a  sense  of  unity.  And  these  buildings  surely  radi- 
ated power  also.  Gombarov  knew  that  these  ramparts  of  grey 
stone,  familiar  to  him  through  pictures,  imprisoned  an  energy, 
whose  cerebral  effulgence,  emanating  from  constantly  renewed 
English  skulls,  ruled  the  destinies  of  perhaps  half  the  human 
race — of  Ireland,  India,  Rhodesia,  Australia,  Canada,  New 
Zealand,  Egypt;  and  he  could  not  help  but  reflect  that  there 
must  have  been  just  such  a  street,  such  a  series  of  buildings, 
85 


BABEL 

in  ancient  Rome,  with  an  equally  immense  cellular  Foreign 
Office,  and  with  separate  Colonial  Offices  for  the  regions  of 
Spain,  Gaul,  Pannonia,  Asia  Minor,  and  even  barbarian  Britain. 
Wholly  vanished  was  that  street  of  the  City  of  Seven  Hills, 
and  out  of  the  city's  ashes  rose  the  bird  Phoenix,  which,  having 
encompassed  several  deaths  and  resurrections,  alighted  on  the 
Thames,  whose  virgin  waters  then  conceived  an  abundance  of 
life,  such  as  had  been  once  that  of  the  Euphrates,  of  the  Nile 
and  of  the  Tiber,  bereaved  rivers  now  flowing  with  sacred 
dead  water.  And  out  of  the  living  womb  of  the  new  chosen 
there  came  forth  men  on  ships  to  conquer  the  earth,  to  establish 
their  speech  and  new  universal  laws,  and  to  proclaim  London 
the  new  and  more  glorious  Babel ;  for  men  have  always  loved 
Babel,  and  their  aspiration  has  ever  been  towards  Babel,  and 
their  existence  has  been  a  continuous  pendulating  between 
Babel  and  Babel. 

Gombarov  had  little  interest  in  politics,  but  in  the  presence 
of  these  Whitehall  walls  and  monuments,  as  if  overcome  by 
their  imperative  atmosphere,  he  found  himself  suddenly  pos- 
sessed with  a  curiously  burning  sense  of  history;  possibly,  the 
cumulative  memories  of  his  race,  which  had  experienced  and 
had  witnessed  other  nations  experience  numerous  vicissitudes, 
now  evoked  in  him  a  responsive  chord  to  an  atmosphere  so 
essentially  historic  and  peopled  with  historic  ghosts;  where- 
upon he  gave  way  to  his  habit  of  introspection  and  meditated 
upon  whether  a  young  stranger  entering  Rome  in  the  heyday 
of  her  glory  had  not  experienced  sensations  like  his  own  on 
his  entry  into  London. 

And  now  here  was  Trafalgar  Square,  the  Nelson  column 

looming  to  overshadow  the  memory  of  the  Titus  Arch,  as  Life 

overshadows  Death,  as  the  Present  overshadows  the  Past, 

and,  trembling,  awaits  the  coming  of  the  Future,  before  whose 

86 


VARIATIONS  ON  A  SINGLE  THEME 

corrosive,  on-creeping  shadow  that  which  has  been  and  that 
which  is  shall  ultimately  and  inevitably  crumble  into  dust, 
and,  crumbling,  lie  flat  as  a  grave,  upon  whose  dust  living 
men  shall  erect  tall  monuments  and  ponderous  arches  to  per- 
petuate the  memory  of  the  life  that  was.  There  was  some 
hint  of  intimacy  about  the  figure  at  the  top  of  the  column, 
as  living  men  had  heard  their  fathers  tell  of  him,  having  seen 
him  in  the  flesh,  of  his  god-like  courage  and  of  his  human 
frailty,  of  his  braving  such  wilful  elements  as  rage  in  men- 
gods  and  nature,  of  his  love  for  a  woman,  and  of  his  love  for 
men,  and  of  his  dying  cry,  which  as  by  some  all  too  earthly 
magic,  in  three  simple  words,  had  touched,  and  would  con- 
tinue to  touch  for  generations  to  come,  the  hearts  of  his  coun- 
trymen: "Kiss  me,  Hardy!" 

Even  Gombarov,  not  an  Englishman,  felt  the  impelling  spell 
of  the  place  the  instant  he  first  beheld  it,  and,  while  the  'bus 
paused,  with  each  succeeding  instant  grew  increasingly  ecstatic 
at  the  sight,  in  that  mystic  twilight,  of  the  noble  square  with 
its  man-crowned  tall  column,  its  broad  facade,  its  background 
of  drowsing  buildings,  the  low-domed  National  Gallery  and 
the  high-spired  St.  Martin-in-the-Fields,  over  which  hovered, 
even  as  that  caressing  light,  the  genius  of  Christopher  Wren. 
Nelson  and  Wren!  It  was  fitting  that  the  twin  spirits  of  two 
such  men,  one  a  hero,  the  other  an  artist,  should  abide  here 
and  permeate  the  place,  since,  it  seemed  to  him,  that  the  divine 
attributes  of  courage  and  beauty  alone  make  life  worth  living, 
give  a  meaning  to  life,  inspire  emulation,  and  cause  men's 
souls  to  gravitate  towards  God,  in  whose  image  they  have  been 
created,  whose  image  they  have  so  often  betrayed.  There  was 
one  thing  he  could  not  understand:  that  was  the  almost  un- 
canny familiarity  of  the  place.  It  was  as  if  he  had  been  here 
before,  as  if  some  dimly  remembered  dream  had  become  a 


BABEL 

clear  reality,  as  if  an  Englishman's  soul  had  crept  into  his  skin 
and  utterly  possessed  him,  or  possibly,  re-possessed  him,  after 
a  lapse,  from  some  previous  existence,  and  had  now  re- 
awakened on  English  soil,  at  the  sight  of  a  typically 
English,  quintessential^  English  scene.  He  had  never  thought 
much  about  the  matter,  had  hitherto  regarded  the  rein- 
carnation theory  as  a  superstition,  and  there  was  no 
explaining  this  strangely  unaccountable  feeling  as  of  "coming 
home." 

Even  at  the  height  of  his  drunken  ecstasy,  all  at  once  there 
obtruded  upon  his  vision  the  suddenly  lit  up  ball  of  the 
Coliseum,  and,  simultaneously,  up  sprang  the  lights  giving 
names  to  the  "stars."  "Let  there  be  light!"  and  "Let  there 
be  stars! "  Here  was  a  new  interpretation,  and  Gombarov  saw 
that  it  was  not  good.  Was  it  not  what  he  had  run  away  from? 
And  here  was  the  barbarian  at  the  old  door,  with  a  new  bag 
of  tricks  and  magic  press-buttons  to  beguile  the  old  soul  away 
in  exchange  for  a  new  one. 

The  soul  of  old  England  was  left  behind  in  Trafalgar 
Square;  the  'bus  rolled  on  through  one  of  the  corridors  of  the 
new  England.  Up  Charing  Cross  Road,  past  a  cinema  house, 
announcing  "The  Grim  Avenger:  A  Thrilling  Romance  of 
Three  Continents";  past  the  Hippodrome,  blazing  with  lights; 
past  the  buildings  of  new  flats,  utterly  banal  but  for  the  curve 
of  the  old  street;  past  a  music  hall,  flaunting  across  its  front 
'the  pirouetting  figure  of  a  Russian  toe-dancer  on  a  coloured 
screen,  while  underneath,  flashing  for  the  world  to  see,  letters 
of  bright  light  proclaiming  other  attractions:  a  Cockney 
Comedian,  a  Spanish  Tango  Turn,  a  Swedish  Acrobat  Troupe, 
American  Clog  Dancers,  an  Argentine  "Stunt"  Artist,  Naughty 
Fifi  the  French  Comic  Chanseuse  and  Mimi  her  Eccentric 
Accompanist,  and  so  on,  and  so  on. 
88 


VARIATIONS  ON  A  SINGLE  THEME 

"How  amazingly  international!"  mused  Gombarov,  and 
laughed  to  himself,  as  the  after-thought  struck  him:  "And 
here  am  I,  a  Russo-American  Jew,  looking  on!" 

Was  this  chaos,  or  unity?  It  was  chaos,  and  had  a  unity 
after  a  fashion.  It  was  the  unity  of  a  many-tuned  medley, 
each  tune  of  which  maintained  its  entity,  losing  it  only  at  the 
moment  of  embracing  another  tune;  at  best,  it  was  the  unity 
of  ultra-modern  music,  shaped  out  of  discords,  beaten  but  not 
molten  into  a  harmony. 

One  thing  struck  him  as  being  extraordinary:  that  at  a  time 
that  articles  of  utility  and  commerce  were  being  standardised 
there  should  be  a  growing  anarchy,  a  steady  effort  towards 
individualisation,  in  the  fine  and  the  vulgar  arts.  This,  the 
pirouetting  figure  reminded  him,  was  especially  true  of  the 
popular  art  of  dancing.  Not  only  was  the  dancing  mania 
growing  and  developing  in  diversity,  but  there  were  actually 
dances  in  which  all  the  participating  couples  were  encouraged 
to  take  individual  steps  different  from  those  of  the  other 
couples.  A  no  mean  measure  of  sensuality  was  introduced 
into  these  dances,  which  equally  departed  from  all  standard 
moralities,  though  the  dancers  were,  for  the  most  part,  from 
respectable  classes,  and  lived  content  in  their  otherwise  stan- 
dardised lives.  Stranger  still,  thought  Gombarov,  this  mania 
of  nimble  wantonness  had  come  hither  from  two  opposite  direc- 
tions, from  two  countries  as  diverse  as  Russia  and  America, 
their  one  point  of  contact.  To  be  sure,  he  had  not  got  all 
this  knowledge  from  his  short  TDUS  ride,  but  had  had  ample 
facilities  for  acquiring  stray  and  curious  information  at  the 
New  World,  where,  for  years,  it  had  been  among  his  duties 
to  follow  events  in  the  London  periodical  press,  with  the 
object  of  concocting  a  weekly  London  letter,  an  object 
89 


BABEL 

attained  by  the  use  of  scissors  and  paste  and  not  a  little 
ingenuity. 

In  front  of  the  pirouetting  figure,  Gombarov,  sitting  on  the 
traffic-arrested  'bus,  would  have  allowed  his  mind,  now  gal- 
loping and  out  of  hand,  to  pursue  its  passionate  meditations 
on  the  subject  of  nimble-legged,  short-skirted  phenomena, 
matters  of  curve  and  line,  concerning  which,  regarding  himself 
a  connoisseur,  he  judged  with  pagan-eyed  detachment,  coolly 
yet  passionately.  The  TDUS,  however,  extricating  itself  from 
the  taxis,  resumed  its  journey,  and  hardly  more  than  a  minute 
elapsed  before  the  conductor  popped  his  head  above  the  steps 
and  shouted: 

"Next  stop,  Tottenham  Court  Road,  sir!" 

JOY  ON  FOOT 

The  'bus  crossed  an  uncommonly  straight,  crowded  street, 
and  stopped.  Gombarov  slowly  descended  with  his  bag  and 
while  the  crowd  swarmed  round  him,  paused  to  get  his  bear- 
ings. He  was  somewhat  dazed  after  his  exciting  twenty-minute 
journey  and  his  first  sight  of  London.  It  had  been  altogether 
an  exciting  day,  beginning  with  his  strange  dream  in  Paris  and 
his  awakening.  Automatically,  he  pulled  out  a  packet  of 
"Maryland"  cigarettes,  and  lit  one,  and  between  abstracted 
puffs  watched  people  go  by.  No  one  paid  the  slightest  atten- 
tion to  him,  in  spite  of  his  wide-brimmed  felt  hat,  his  artist's 
black  wing  tie  and  his  wistful,  energetic  face,  rich  with  a  dark 
pallour,  coppery  in  tone,  in  spite,  too,  of  his  deep,  well-set 
eyes,  grey-blue  under  the  sharp-defined  black  spans  of  the 
brows,  which  arched  from  the  long,  straight  pillar  of  the  nose, 
and  on  either  side  met  a  stray  tuft  of  his  longish  hair,  against 
whose  black  the  eyes  appeared  of  an  intense  and  lustrous  blue. 
It  was  different  in  America,  or  even  in  Paris,  where,  it  did 
90 


VARIATIONS  ON  A  SINGLE  THEME 

not  escape  his  notice,  he  had  served  as  an  object  of  observation 
even  among  ordinary  people.  He  had  not  yet  had  time  to 
learn  that  Paris  was,  in  comparison,  a  walled  town,  that  its 
social  instincts  were  those  of  a  walled  town,  and  that  in  spite 
of  its  reputation  as  a  refuge  for  artists  and  eccentrics,  uncom- 
mon appearances  excited  far  greater  interest  than  similar 
appearances  in  London,  a  place  as  impersonal  as  the  sea,  taking 
no  notice  of  its  driftwood,  whether  mahogany  or  plain  spruce. 
He  soon  saw  a  policeman  standing  in  the  very  centre  of  the 
open  space  where  five  streets  converged,  and  once  more  gath- 
ering up  his  bag,  as  well  as  his  courage,  approached  him.  The 
mild-mannered  bobby  gave  him  his  directions  for  Russell 
Square  with  a  courtesy  so  overwhelming  and  a  precision  so 
meticulous  that  Gombarov,  remembering  the  rude  condescen- 
sion of  New  York's  law  guardians,  thought  for  a  moment  that 
he  had  entered  Alice's  Wonderland.  A  moment  later  he  was 
conscious  of  having  forgotten  to  thank  the  polite  bobby,  and 
in  great  chagrin  he  paused  on  the  kerb,  uncertain  whether  he 
ought  not  to  go  back;  and  even  while  he  paused  his  eyes, 
glancing  upward,  fell  on  the  most  extraordinary  sculptures  he 
had  ever  seen,  which  quite  banished  the  policeman  from  his 
mind.  He  saw  four  male  figures  ranged  along  a  ledge  over  shop 
windows.  Heroic  in  size,  they  were  heroic  in  nothing  else; 
their  backs  to  the  wall  of  the  house  caryatid-wise,  they  held 
up  nothing  but  the  empty  air;  without  any  pretensions  what- 
soever of  bodily  perfection,  of  abstract  or  ideal  beauty,  they 
were  yet  lacking  in  modesty;  they  wore  neither  fig-leaves  nor 
goat-skins,  neither  Greek  draperies  nor  Roman  togas,  nor  any 
outer  garment  ever  represented  in  the  arts,  yet  they  were  not 
naked,  but  boldly  stood  up,  for  all  the  world  to  see,  hi  suits 
of  up-to-date  underwear,  comfortably  fitting  in  spite  of  the 
formidable  paunches  exhibited  by  two  of  the  figures.  Here 
91 


BABEL 

was  bedroom  realism  for  you,  thought  Gombarov,  as  his  slow- 
thinking  brain  grasped  the  fact  that  these  masterpieces  of 
banality  had  been  erected  to  glorify  the  heroic  endurance  of 
the  "You-can't-tear-'em  Union  Suits." 

"Them's  made  to  last  as  long  as  the  British  Hempire  lasts," 
said  a  cockney  wit  to  Gombarov,  having  observed  the  latter's 
preoccupation,  and  added  before  he  passed  on:  "All  you  want 
to  complete  the  set  is  a  couple  of  fat  girls  in  combinations,  eh?" 

Gombarov  laughed  at  the  ludicrous  vision  evoked  by  the 
ribald  cockney,  and  suddenly  awakened  to  the  fact  that  he 
was  in  Shakespeare's  country  and  that  in  spite  of  the  Puritans, 
the  native  wit  of  the  people  had  not  wholly  run  dry.  Surely, 
no  "intellectual"  could  have  offered  so  trenchant  a  criticism. 
At  all  events,  the  cockney's  words  broke  the  child-like  spell 
that  held  him  before  these  extraordinary  works  of  art  attired 
in  the  "You-can't-tear-'em  underwear";  and  pulling  himself 
together,  he  threaded  his  way  through  the  crowd  towards  Great 
Russell  Street. 

After  Tottenham  Court  Road,  this  street  seemed  pervaded 
by  an  intense  quiet.  As  his  bag  was  growing  heavy  he  often 
paused  to  rest,  and  while  resting  he  went  on  observing.  Noth- 
ing, however  trivial,  escaped  him.  It  was  impossible  not  to 
notice  the  huge  building  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Asso- 
ciation, whose  presence  in  a  Christian  country  was  hardly  to 
be  deemed  as  strange  as  that  of  the  shop  across  the  street, 
where  Buddhas  and  heathen  gods  of  all  nations  could  be  bought 
in  assorted  sizes  and  at  varying  prices  by  chance  alien  wor- 
shippers and  antique  collectors,  the  latter  a  class  accustomed 
to  handle  and  to  buy  strange  images  and  idols  and  finely 
wrought  gem-encrusted  crucifixes  with  equal  irreverence,  for 
their  esthetic  or  material  value  rather  than  for  their  being  the 
spiritual  emanation  of  some  artist  drunken  with  the  Divine 
92 


VARIATIONS  ON  A  SINGLE  THEME 

Essence.  Gombarov  walked  on,  getting  his  fill  on  the  way  of 
Japanese  and  Persian  prints,  of  Chinese  ivories  and  dragoned 
screens,  of  Indian  chessmen,  of  all  manner  of  lacquer  wares,  of 
Malay  Archipelago  boat  oars,  of  Maoriland  spears,  of  Javanese 
marionettes,  of  American  Indian  tomahawks,  wampum  and 
moccasins,  of  an  endless  variety  of  gew-gaws,  some  of  them 
minute  enough  to  have  come  from  Lilliput.  He  had  about 
made  up  his  mind  to  succumb  to  no  further  temptations, 
when  there  hove  in  sight,  seemingly  endlessly  stretching,  a 
series  of  tall  iron  railings,  and  as  he  approached  nearer,  there 
became  visible,  considerably  receding,  an  immense  Greek  build- 
ing, nobly  colonnaded,  distinguished  shadows  falling  from  the 
tall  formidable  columns  and  filling  the  portico  with  godly 
mystery,  vibrant  in  portentous  twilight.  The  last  daylight 
hovered  with  a  bright  dying  lustre,  then  perceptibly  dark- 
ened, like  a  woman's  white  body  sleepily  turning  on  its  side 
and  pulling  over  itself  a  diaphanous  coverlet  of  purple.  Gom- 
barov stood  for  some  time  watching  the  beautiful  building  as 
it  softened  under  the  caresses  of  the  steadily  deepening  pur- 
ple, and  mentally  dissociating  it  from  the  relative  meanness  of 
its  surroundings  imagined  it  as  a  living  temple,  lonely  on  a  hill, 
dedicated  to  worship. 

No  dark-skinned  Greek  in  white  draperies  stood  at  the  stone 
gates,  but  only  a  blue-uniformed  commissionaire  conversing 
with  a  policeman.  Gombarov  had  no  need  to  ask  what  the 
building  was,  for  from  photographs  and  engravings,  he  knew  it 
to  be  the  British  Museum,  the  greatest  yet  of  all  repositories, 
nay,  of  mausoleums,  dedicated  to  the  preservation  of  fragments, 
and  fragments  of  fragments,  of  extinct,  and  nearly  extinct, 
civilisations;  and  it  was  wonderful  to  think  that  there  was 
93 


BABEL 

hardly  a  known  historic,  or  even  prehistoric,  event,  but 
there  was  some  record  of  it  here  in  stone  or  papyrus;  that 
hardly  a  nation,  race  or  tribe,  but  was  represented  by  some 
ultimate  expression  of  its  soul,  congealed  in  stone,  the  works 
of  its  nameless  Phidiases;  that  hardly  an  emotion  of  beauty, 
born  of  the  marriage  of  the  mind  and  the  senses,  but  was  pres- 
ent here  in  some  image  or  form  of  itself;  endless  transient  mo- 
ments, each  containing  all  eternity  and  preserved  for  eternity. 
Simple  weapons  of  war,  too,  with  which  human  beings  fought 
one  another  before  the  apostles  of  Progress  had  devised  the 
machine-gun  and  the  submarine,  weapons  ultimately  surren- 
dered to  Death,  the  last  victor;  it  was,  indeed,  as  if  the  ancient 
antagonisms  were  reconciled  here,  in  this  huge  repository,  a 
kind  of  Babel  of  the  Dead,  placed  by  curious  irony,  perhaps 
by  divine  design,  in  the  very  midst  of  the  Babel  of  the  Living. 
Gombarov  turned  from  this  solemn  thought  and  again  imag- 
ined the  building  as  a  living  temple  on  a  lone  hill,  when  sud- 
denly strange  sounds  broke  in  upon  his  abstraction. 

JOY   OF   BAGPIPES 

He  had  heard  those  sounds  before,  but  never  had  they 
sounded  so  strange.  He  looked  in  the  direction  from  which 
they  came  and  saw  a  sturdy,  bare-kneed  figure  in  Scotch  kilts 
and  tunic  of  plaid  and  tam-o'-shanter  strutting  up  and  down 
the  street,  along  the  line  of  the  kerb,  blowing  with  puffed-out 
cheeks  into  that  strange  puffed-out  device,  the  Scotch  bag- 
pipes. 

With  a  copious  clamour  strange,  wild,  uncanny  sounds  burst 

from  the  pent-up  bag,  as  if  a  thousand  small  captive  birds 

from  Scotland's  hills  were  inside  the  bag,  by  some  magic  made 

to  sing  one  tune,  the  piper's  own,  to  his  charming  and  willing. 

94 


VARIATIONS  ON  A  SINGLE  THEME 


THE  BAGPIPES 

A  bagful,  a  bagful  of  birds, 

Birds,  birds,  birds, 

Singing,  chirping, 

Warbling,  twittering, 

Trilling,  caroling, 

Fiercely  fluttering 

In  a  tuneful  capering, 

Whimpering,  clamouring, 

For  flight  at  dawning, 

For  delight  of  morning, 

For  at  eve  to  hover 

Over  lassie  and  lover, 

For  at  night  to  rest 

With  mate  in  soft  nest, 

At  noon  by  Sun  to  be  kiss't, 

A  tune  to  sing  to  the  mist, 

O  kind  MacPherson, 

Blind  piper's  son, 

Let  us  out,  out,  out  I 

We  are  crying, 

We  are  dying, 

For  hills  t 

For  jar,  jar  hills, 

For  green  dells  and  rills, 

For  bluebells  and  heather, 

Where  birds  may  gather, 

And  sing  together, 

In  highland  and  lowland, 

The  green  land  of  Scotland, 

Forever,  forever,  forever/ 


95 


BABEL 

This  was  the  curious  fashion  in  which  he  later  recorded 
the  bagpipes  episode  in  his  Diary,  and  to  these  simple  rhymes 
he  added  in  prose: 

"I  could  not  help  reflecting  that  there  was  a  curious,  if 
indefinable,  kinship  between  the  simple  grandeur  of  that 
Greek  building  and  those  weird  pipes;  and  something  hi  me 
responded  to  both.  Can  it  be  that  my  having  been  born  and 
bred  in  the  Russian  woods  has  something  to  do  with  this 
response?  For,  surely,  both  things  are  of  nature:  the  simple 
building  with  its  strong,  erect  columns  like  trees,  which  cast 
shadows  as  trees  cast  shadows  hi  a  forest,  among  which  the 
strangely  bird-like  music  of  the  bagpipes  finds  natural,  even 
inevitable  echoes.  Both  are  of  nature,  as  much  as  the  Egyptian 
pyramid  is  of  nature,  having  been  created  in  the  image  of  a 
mountain  to  secure  the  sense  of  permanence  that  is  of  a 
mountain,  for  towards  permanence  man  has  always  aspired, 
towards  some  perpetuation  of  himself  in  flesh,  stone,  words, 
music,  some  shape  or  art  form.  But  there  is  nothing  hi  com- 
mon between  the  Museum  and  the  mean  little  houses  by  which 
it  is  surrounded,  and  there  is  nothing  in  common  between  the 
piper  and  the  little  pot-bellied  man  who,  joining  me  at  the 
kerb,  observed:  'Why  don't  they  stop  that  terrible  noise? 
They  ought  to  have  a  law  against  undesirable  noises.  I'd 
sooner  hear  a  rag  on  a  mouth  organ!'  I  said  nothing,  but 
fingering  a  malicious  six-pence,  so  that  the  man  could  not 
help  seeing  it,  dropped  it  into  the  piper's  hat." 

JOY  OF  OBSESSION 

The  piper  walked  away.    Gombarov  would  have  absurdly 
followed  the  piper,  but  there  was  his  own  unmusical  bag  of 
thick  leather,  brass-bound  at  the  corners,  containing  clothes 
96 


VARIATIONS  ON  A  SINGLE  THEME 

and  books,  altogether  heavier  than  any  big  bagful  of  birds' 
tunes;  it  was  not  the  sort  of  thing  to  lug  about  with  one  on 
his  first  night  in  a  strange  city,  and  a  lodging  yet  to  be 
found. 

"Please  tell  me  the  way  to  Russell  Square,"  he  asked  the 
first  man  he  met,  as  he  proceeded  on  his  way. 

The  man  did  not  appear  to  understand  and  glanced  at  him 
blankly. 

"Russell  Square,"  repeated  Gombarov. 

The  man  maintained  his  dumb  if  friendly  look,  but  on 
Gombarov  repeating  "Russell  Square"  for  the  third  time,  a 
gleam  of  intelligence,  even  joy,  leapt  into  his  eyes,  as  in  a 
foreign  voice,  full  of  eager  gladness,  his  hands  gesticulating, 
he  exclaimed: 

"Ah-h,  ze  Rossaile  Squaire!  Take  ze  left  road,  dors  ze 
right  road.  Cinq  minutest"  and  he  lifted  up  five  fingers. 

"Mercil"  said  Gombarov,  and  wondered  as  he  continued 
his  journey  whether  if  he  had  landed  here  in  1612  instead  of 
1912  he  would  have  had  a  Frenchman  show  him  the  way, 
and  to  his  own  question  he  replied:  "No,  nor  a  Russian,  nor 
a  Bohemian,  nor  an  Italian,  but  doubtless  some  roystering 
Englishman,  who  would  have  looked  me  up  and  down  as  at 
some  strange  animal." 

He  found  Russell  Square  and  stopped  to  look  at  the  impos- 
ing looking  hotels  situated  there.  A  New  York  hotel  of  the 
appearance  these  hotels  presented  would  be  expensive,  and 
the  elaborately  uniformed  commissionaires  who  stood  haughtily 
at  the  entrances  gave  a  further  forbidding  touch.  "There  must 
be  cheaper  hotels  hereabouts,"  he  thought,  and  trailed  in  the 
direction  of  Woburn  Place.  Inquiries  at  four  different  houses, 
which  had  signs  up,  "Bed  and  Breakfast,  3/6,"  elicited  the 
97 


BABEL 

reply  that  they  were  "full  up";  at  the  fifth  he  found  a  room. 
Asked  to  register  his  name,  he  curiously  ran  his  eyes  down 
the  page,  and  the  result  gratified  him  beyond  all  expectation: 

J.  S.  Mallik,  Calcutta. 

A.  Goldstein,  Kieff. 

David  Williams,  Llandudno. 

Patrick  O'Flaherty,  Dublin. 

Thomas  Ayres  Watt,  Chicago. 

Jules  L'Estrange,  Marseilles. 

Giuseppi  Crescenzo,  Genoa. 

And  so  on,  and  so  on. 

"You  don't  appear  to  have  many  Englishmen  here,"  observed 
Gombarov  to  draw  out  the  lodging  house  keeper. 

"No,"  replied  the  latter,  a  Scotsman.  "We  had  one  last 
week,  and  he  left  next  day  for  Africa,  to  hunt  lions,  he  said. 
He  didn't  like  the  looks  of  London,  said  there  were  too  many 
tame  foreigners  about."  The  Scotsman  grinned.  "Gladys, 
show  the  gentleman  up  to  Number  Nine,"  said  he  to  a  fair 
buxom  girl  who  had  come  into  the  room,  in  response  to  his  ring. 
"You'll  find  everything  there  in  order,  sir." 

He  had  seen  that  room  before.  It  was  the  same  as  every- 
where, except  that  the  reproductions  consisted  chiefly  of  sup- 
plements to  Christmas  pictorials  and  of  portraits  of  English 
royalty.  The  inscription  over  the  bed,  "God  Rest  Me!"  at 
once  aroused  his  suspicions  of  the  bed,  which,  however,  on 
examination,  proved  unfounded. 

Then  followed  the  joy  of  washing  his  face  after  a  strenuous 

day,  the  joy  of  feeling  cool  water  on  his  perspiring  skin.    But 

he  was  still  too  excited  to  rest,  so  putting  on  a  fresh  collar 

he  walked  out  again,  carefully  following  the  original  direction; 

98 


VARIATIONS  ON  A  SINGLE  THEME 

and  there  was  the  added  joy  of  being  quite  free  of  his  bag. 
There  are  so  many  joys  in  this  world  that  it  would  be  folly 
to  count  them  all. 

JOY  IN  A  CUP  OF  TEA 

He  was  now  back  in  Tottenham  Court  Road.  After  walking 
up  and  down  the  street  for  a  while,  he  entered  an  eating  house, 
and  fell  into  a  once  red,  now  colourless  plush  seat  against  the 
wall,  ordered  tea  and  bread  and  butter,  then  gave  himself  up 
to  a  study  of  the  room.  Dingy,  tired  electric  lights  hung 
down  from  the  ceiling  and  revealed  a  dingy,  tired  room,  full 
of  dingy,  tired  properties.  There  was  a  weary,  rusty  look, 
reminiscent  of  a  second-hand  shop,  about  the  steaming  perpen- 
dicular urns  on  the  counter,  where  also  reposed  apathetic  sand- 
wiches, which  were  now  and  then  conveyed  by  apathetic  wait- 
resses to  apathetic  patrons.  So  it  appeared  to  him  after 
America.  He  especially  observed  a  young  man  and  a  girl 
in  one  of  the  corner  seats.  The  girl  had  an  arm  round  the 
young  man's  neck;  one  of  his  hands  rested  across  her  knees; 
and  thus  they  sat,  immovable,  a  long,  incredibly  long  time. 
They  might  have  been  figures  at  Madame  Tussaud's.  The 
light  so  fell  that  it  lighted  up  their  stationary  smiles;  and  thus, 
quietly,  they  smiled  for  a  long,  incredibly  long  time.  The 
remains  of  their  fish  supper  lay  on  the  table  in  front  of  them; 
he  observed  that  most  of  the  patrons  had  ordered  fish,  which, 
fried  and  dried  and  all  curled  up,  had  the  appearance  of  a 
stage  property,  such  as  he  had  seen  employed  with  devastating 
effect  in  American  burlesque  sketches,  together  with  its  friendly 
rival,  the  syphon  bottle. 

The  tea  he  drank  was  strong  and  black,  but  the  pleasure 
he  experienced  in  being  at  last  in  London  bewitched  him,  and 
far  from  disliking  it,  he  went  on  sipping  it  as  if  it  were  nectar 

99 


BABEL 

in  the  bowl  of  Dulcinea's  palm.  And  suddenly,  he  felt  an 
infusion  of  blitheness  and  strength;  his  legs  felt  hard  and 
firm,  his  belly  taut  and  as  of  brass,  his  coat  full  of  shoulders. 
To  such  an  extent  did  his  mind,  at  that  moment,  exert  its 
will  over  his  body.  He  felt  the  joy  of  precarious  freedom. 
And  he  went  on  drinking  nectar  out  of  the  bowl  of  Dulcinea's 
hand.  Then,  suddenly,  as  yet  slightly,  his  inner  wings  flapped, 
wings  whose  existence  he  had  hitherto  hardly  been  aware  of, 
wings  pinioned  by  the  cruel  uncouth  hands  of  that  man- 
created  monster,  mechanical  Caliban,  who,  by  an  evolved 
cunning,  had  at  last  overpowered  man,  his  master,  and  made 
him  his  servant,  and  had  caged  Ariel  in  man's  breast  to 
intensify  his  torment  and  discontent.  He  gnashed  his  teeth 
at  the  thought  of  his  many  misspent  years  at  the  factory  and 
in  factory-made  society,  and  braced  by  this  damning  thought 
his  inner  wings  flapped  again,  now  more  vigorously.  Such 
was  the  effect  of  being  at  freedom  in  a  strange  city,  yet  a  city 
in  some  way  unaccountably  familiar  to  him.  And  he  went  on 
drinking  that  black,  bitter  tea  as  if  it  were  some  anodyne, 
nectar  out  of  the  bowl  of  Dulcinea's  hand. 

JOY  OF   WINDING   STREETS 

He  paced  the  streets,  and  turned  into  a  winding  lane,  which, 
like  some  lives,  was  a  short  but  merry  one.  A  curio  shop, 
before  whose  window  stood  a  few  gaping  passers-by;  the  stage- 
door  of  a  music-hall,  before  which  loitered  some  idle  Johnnies 
waiting  for  their  sweeties  to  come  forth;  the  back  of  a  popular 
restaurant,  from  whose  open  windows  issued  the  strenuous 
melody  of  an  American  "rag",  played,  judging  from  the 
shadowy  silhouettes  visible  against  the  lower  opaque  panes, 
by  an  active  orchestra  of  three;  these  were  some  of  the  features 
of  the  little  street,  whose  deviations  of  house  and  kerb  line 
IOO 


VARIATIONS  ON  A  SINGLE  THEME 

struck  him  as  quaint  and  lured  him  irresistibly  on.  Then  it 
took  a  sudden  curve  towards  the  main  street,  and  at  the  apex 
of  this  curve  he  found  an  even  tinier  lane  seductively  diverging 
in  the  opposite  direction  and  disappearing  in  an  attractive, 
unpremeditated  curve  between  two  rows  of  petty  houses,  lit 
up  quaintly  at  the  curve's  vanishing  point  by  a  lone  street 
lamp,  whose  slight  flicker  caused  the  faint  light  and  fainter 
shadows  to  move  back  and  forward,  like  a  caressing  hand, 
across  the  houses  and  pavement.  There  was  in  this  arrange- 
ment of  curves  and  divergences  a  sense  as  natural  as  a  meeting 
of  streams.  Who  knew  if  it  did  not  owe  its  origin  to  precisely 
such  a  confluence  of  waters,  over  whose  drained  beds  the 
road-makers  had  built  these  meandering  city  lanes?  What- 
ever the  cause,  there  was  in  this  composition  a  perfection  the 
greater  for  its  artlessness.  The  lamp-post  itself  stood  as  a 
mystic  symbol  at  the  convergence  of  these  curves,  and  the  dim 
flare  that  crowned  it  cast  a  circle  of  frail  light  of  diffuse 
softness,  obliterating  all  sense  of  local  colour  and  enduing 
the  spot  with  an  aspect  timeless  and  placeless,  rich  with 
penumbral  mystery,  as  if,  altogether,  it  were  a  stage  design 
devised  by  a  master  dramatist  for  the  enactment  of  eternal 
moments.  Deserted,  it  yet  appeared  to  vibrate  with  an  intense 
life,  ready  for  the  entrance  of  dark,  indeterminate  figures, 
draped  classically  or  in  modern  apparel,  but  unchanged  and 
changeless  in  gesture,  in  the  manner  of  a  whisper,  and  in 
alternate  moods  of  love,  conspiracy,  ambition,  and  murder. 
Here  was  nothing,  and  here  was  everything.  Rembrandt 
would  have  made  a  miracle  of  it.  Gombarov  stood  there  a 
long  time,  bewitched  by  the  simple  magic  of  the  spot,  and 
renewed  his  regret  for  not  having  followed  his  bent  for 
painting. 

In  the  course  of  his  stroll  Gombarov  found  more  than  one 
IOI 


BABEL 

such  exiled  corner,  crowded  by  a  clamorous  new  world;  more 
than  one  such  winding  lane  running  into  another,  curve  inter- 
secting curve;  and  he  thought  of  those  endless  streets  of  the 
city  he  had  come  from,  thoroughfares  whose  length,  rectitude 
and  dullness  had  doubtless  been  designed  to  do  tribute  to 
Virtue,  that  methodical,  prudish  goddess  who  disdained  the 
seductive  roundnesses  of  the  female.  And,  as  he  recalled 
those  streets,  he  understood  the  violence  they  had  done  to  his 
nature.  "No,  no!"  he  thought,  "not  alone  my  nature,  but 
nature  generally.  Nature  thinks  in  terms  of  streams,  not  of 
canals.  These  old  bits  were  built  up  slowly,  naturally;  they 
were  not  planned,  they  just  grew;  there  is  a  sense  of  leisure  in 
this. 

But  speed  makes  for  straightness,  straightness  makes  for 
speed.  And  you  want  to  go  speedily  through  a  straight  street, 
as  it  is  boring  and  without  mystery.  A  place  of  long,  straight 
streets  must,  therefore,  influence  the  character  of  the  inhab- 
itants. It  must  influence  all  of  life.  I  should  say  the  modern 
brain  is  no  longer  impressed  with  convolutions,  but  with  rectan- 
gles. That,  perhaps,  accounts  for  much  of  modern  art,  the  art 
of  Douglass." 

Thus  Gombarov  went  on  thinking,  and  he  realized  more  and 
more  the  adventure  and  significance  of  trivial  things,  the  fact 
of  trivial  things  having  a  meaning  hardly  less  profound  than 
important,  world-stirring  events;  for  all  things  answered  to 
the  same  laws,  and  all  laws  were  equally  at  the  root  of  big  and 
little  things.  The  known  universe  was  but  a  small  thing  lost 
in  the  immensity  of  space,  and  a  whole  universe  throbbed  on 
his  thumbnail,  in  the  bowl  of  a  buttercup  or  on  a  butterfly's 
wing. 

102 


VARIATIONS  ON  A  SINGLE  THEME 

A  JOY  REFUSED 

"Are  you  lonely,  darling?" 

The  question  was  flung  at  him  by  a  girl  who  suddenly 
stepped  out  of  the  recess  of  a  doorway.  As  yet  he  saw  under 
the  broad  brim  of  her  hat  a  mere  whiteness,  the  haunting 
semblance  of  a  smile,  rouged  lips  parted  and  two  rows  of  white 
teeth,  and  the  liquid  glitter  of  two  points,  fixing  him  from 
under  the  shadows. 

The  suddenness  with  which  the  question  was  flung  at  him 
out  of  the  darkness  of  the  doorway,  and  the  immediate 
emergence  of  the  girl,  startled  him,  acted  upon  his  thoughts 
like  the  precipitate  falling  of  a  stone  into  very  clear  water, 
which  grew  muddled  and  rippled,  spreading  into  a  series  of 
broadening  circles,  each  flaunting  in  increasingly  widening 
letters  the  importunate  question, ""Are  you  lonely,  darling?" 

He  made  no  reply,  and  the  girl,  presuming  on  his  hesitation, 
walked  on  at  his  side,  without  asking  his  leave.  He  looked 
at  her,  and  was  about  to  speak,  when  she,  recognising  a 
foreigner  in  him  and  wrongly  suspecting  the  cause  of  his 
hesitation,  forestalled  him  in  a  reassuring  voice: 

"Oh,  no!  I'm  not  English,  boy,  if  that's  what  you  are 
thinking.  I'm  real  alive,  direct  from  Sydney,  Australia,  the 
Paris  of  the  Southern  world.  And  my  mother  was  French. 
The  English  girls  are  no  good.  You  don't  want  a  corpse, 
do  you?" 

"I  am  sorry.    I  don't  want  anyone! " 

"I'll  show  you  a  good  time,"  went  on  the  girl,  coaxingly. 
She  laughed  and  blew  fumes  of  wine  in  his  face.  "I  am 
the  joy  of  all  nations,  that's  what  I  am!  I  can  please  a 
Frenchie,  an  Espagnole,  or  an  I-talian.  That's  honest,  boy. 
Testimonials?  Come  home  with  me  and  I'll  show  you  enough 
103 


BABEL 

to  snow  you  under.  Love  letters  by  the  score.  Photographs 
too!  The  wall  is  covered  with  them.  Frenchies,  Hindus, 
Dagoes,  Jew  boys,  Yanks,  Swedes,  Rooshians,  Japs,  Chinks! 
Some  of  them  wanted  to  marry  me,  too!  But  I  am  not  the 
marrying  kind.  No,  not  me.  I  love  no  one  man.  I  love 
them  all!  I  don't  care  where  they  come  from.  They  are  all 
darlings  to  me,  except  when  they  are  rotters.  Now,  I  don't 
mind  a  bounder,  but  I  draw  the  line  at  a  rotter  .  .  ." 

She  went  on  volubly  punctuating  her  sentences  with  good- 
natured  laughs.  Suddenly  she  asked: 

"And  what  may  you  be?  One  can  see  you  ain't  English. 
But  you  may  be  a  Yank,  judging  by  the  cut  of  your  clothes," 
and  she  teasingly  felt  the  padding  of  his  shoulders.  "Yanks 
are  never  as  big  as  they  look." 

"I?    I  come  from  the  moon.    Just  dropped  down!" 

"Oh,  one  can  see  you  are  moony,"  laughed  the  girl.  "That 
don't  make  any  difference  to  me.  Come  along  with  me,  and 
111  make  you  forget  your  faraway  country." 

"But  I  have  a  girl  there!"  he  laughed. 

"Ha!  ha!  ha!  That's  a  good  one!  A  girl  in  the  moon! 
You  are  moonier  than  I  thought.  I  can  make  you  forget  that 
girl.  And  let  me  tell  you,  boy,  a  girl  in  hand  is  worth  two 
in  the  moon  any  day.  Are  you  coming  with  me?" 

"No,  I  can't.    I'm  sorry." 

She  desisted,  not  without  firing  a  contemptuous  parting 
shot: 

"Ah,  you  are  one  of  those  nasty  men  who  keep  your  bed- 
room locked  to  keep  out  a  bit  of  joy!" 

Gombarov  laughed,  and  said  to  himself:  "Well,  she  doesn't 
keep  hers  locked,  that's  certain.  'Joy  of  all  nations!'  A 
regular  Babel  of  love,  according  to  her  own  account.  What 
an  amusing  creature!" 

104 


VARIATIONS  ON  A  SINGLE  THEME 

All  his  other  thoughts  had  left  him,  and  he  was  seized  with 
a  desire  for  Winifred,  who  was  as  far  away  as  the  moon. 

JOY  OF  JOYS 

The  joy,  after  an  exciting,  full-lived  day,  of  being  in  bed, 
lying  still  and  feeling  the  tingle  of  the  blood  through  weary 
legs,  half-conscious  of  the  gradual  dropping  into  sleep! 

Two  different  church  bells  struck  the  hour  of  two.  One 
was  a  new  bell,  and  its  clang  was  hard,  hoarse,  of  a  muffled 
deepness.  The  other  was  an  old  bell,  of  bell-metal  loved 
of  its  maker,  and  its  sound  was  sweet  and  clear,  tinged  with 
silver;  there  was  in  it  the  reminiscent  sadness  of  ancient  years. 

Each  bell  sang  its  separate  song,  and  the  louder  resonance 
of  the  new  bell  could  not  deafen  the  clearer,  more  slender 
notes  of  the  old,  which  evoked  an  image  of  a  castle  on  a 
hill,  of  hooded,  cassocked  men  walking  in  a  sequestered  court 
garden,  in  the  centre  of  which,  altar-like,  stood  a  sun-dial, 
beside  a  playing  fountain,  exquisitely  fashioned  by  men  who 
loved  their  work. 

Both  bell  songs,  the  old  and  the  new,  joined  in  the  tingle 
of  his  blood,  took  their  direction  with  it,  and  merging  with 
the  other  in  his  brain,  died  away  there.  And  with  the  last 
dying  note,  Gombarov  was  sound  asleep.  It  was  the  joy  of 
joys,  obliterating  all  other  joys  and  all 


105 


CHAPTER  III:    THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

"Gather    up    the    fragments    that 
remain,  that  nothing  be  lost." 
ST.  JOHN,  vi:  12. 

ELEPHANT   AND   CASTLE 

WITH  the  help  of  Alfred  Welsh,  Gombarov  was  soon  settled, 
Elephant  and  Castle  way,  in  a  room  of  a  house  next  door  to 
where  Welsh  lived  with  his  family,  poor  people  who  keenly 
felt  the  presence  of  an  additional  mouth.  It  was  true  that  the 
prodigal  was  received  with  a  fatted  rabbit,  but  a  single  rabbit 
does  not  last  a  summer,  and  Alf,  to  use  his  mother's  words, 
"didn't  have  'arf  of  an  appetite."  In  the  back-yard,  over  the 
wash-tub,  the  harassed,  grey-haired,  little  woman  of  over 
fifty  poured  out  her  woes  to  Mrs.  Tufnell,  Gombarov's  land- 
lady, who  unfailingly  carried  the  gossip  to  her  lodger,  with 
all  the  essential  ornamentation  and  comment  of  her  own. 

Mrs.  Tufnell  had  been,  in  her  prime,  "principal  boy"  in 
pantomime,  until  Mr.  Tufnell  came  along  and  made  her  his 
"best  girl,"  and  ultimately,  his  better  half,  whereupon  she 
retired  from  the  stage,  and  in  the  comfort  of  a  home  lost  her 
supple  lines  and  grew  fat,  but  retained  the  good  nature, 
sportsmanship  and  temperament  characteristic  of  the  music-hall 
artist.  She  not  only  suffered  moods  herself,  but  was  sensitive 
to  moods  in  others,  and  was  infallibly  aware  when  her  lodger 
was  worried.  She  understood  the  precise  nature  of  most  of  his 
indispositions,  though  he  had  told  her  nothing,  and  one  evening, 
after  she  had  placed  some  cold  meat  and  salad  before  him  and 
106 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

poured  him  out  a  glass  of  stout,  she  gently  put  a  hand  on  his 
shoulder  and  said: 

"Come,  boy,  it's  not  worth  thinking  about.  Chuck  itl  A 
girl  like  that  is  no  good  to  you." 

He  was  astonished,  but  did  not  resent  the  intrusion.  She 
was  a  good,  simple  soul  and,  in  his  loneliness,  he  appreciated 
her  motherly  attitude  and  understanding. 

After  that  it  seemed  like  a  contradiction  that  a  woman  so 
generously  disposed  should  have  married  a  bailiff,  as  that  was 
Mr.  TufnelFs  profession.  In  the  world  in  which  his  short, 
gruff,  robust  figure  moved,  he  was  "the  chucker-out."  There 
is  nothing  cryptic  in  this,  for,  as  bailiff,  he  had  to  superintend 
in  person  the  chucking  out  of  the  goods  and  chattels  of  people 
who  could  not  pay  their  rent.  Some  days  he  performed  two 
or  three  of  these  ceremonies,  and  as  he  usually  followed  each 
with  a  whiskey  and  soda,  he  returned  home  full  of  his  exploits, 
which  he  told  with  a  fair  seasoning  of  strong  breaths,  though 
not  without  good  humour. 

"It  was  a  sight,  and  no  mistake,"  he  was  relating  one  day, 
at  dinner.  "There  was  the  poor  woman  all  huddled  up  with 
her  miserable  kids — an  'arf  dozen  or  so,  as  far  as  I  could  see — 
and  she  sitting  in  a  chair  in  the  middle,  dejected-like.  And 
I  says  to  her:  'You've  got  to  pay  up,  and  if  you  can't,  it's 
my  orders  to  put  you  out.  I'm  sorry,  ma'am,  but  it's  my 
duty.'  She  raised  her  face,  and  I  see  she  'as  a  black  eye. 
'Woman,'  says  I,  'who  gave  you  that  black  eye?'  She  says 
nothing.  I  goes  on:  'I  suppose  your  'usband's  been  drunk 
again.'  Again  she  says  nothing.  Then  I  'ears  footsteps  and 
the  door  of  the  next  room  flies  open,  and  in  steps  a  big,  burly 
bloke  with  the  face  of  a  bull  terrier.  He  gets  up  right  close 
to  me,  an'  'e  says:  'I  can  get  drunk  when  I  like,  see?  It's 
not  the  likes  of  you  that's  going  to  stop  me.'  And  he  glares 
107 


BABEL 

at  me.  Then  'e  says:  'And  what's  more,  I  hits  my  wife  when 
I  likes,  see?'  An'  he  walks  up  to  'er  and  kind  o'  takes  'er 
head  with  'is  left  hand,  and  a  right  handsome  fist  it  was  too,  a 
regular  beaut,  and  'e  says  to  me:  'Say  another  word  about  my 
woman's  black  eye,  and  111  give  'er  another,  just  to  give  you 
something  to  talk  about.  Say  the  word,  and  111  oblige 
ye.'  And  the  bloke  made  a  move  as  if  'e  was  going  to  shoot 
out  his  fist,  so  that  the  poor  woman  shut  'er  eyes,  that  she 
did.  He  almost  forgot  my  being  there.  'I'll  show  ye,'  he 
yelled  out  at  the  woman,  *  'ow  to  spend  the  last  tanner  on 
ale,  instead  of  keepin'  it  for  your  'usband  that  wants  a  drink 
mighty  bad  after  sweating  all  day  to  keep  you  and  the  kids 
in  food  and  clothes!'  He  was  about  to  let  go,  too,  when  in 
steps  the  two  constables  I  had  waiting  outside,  for  I  'eard 
the  sort  of  customer  he  was,  and  took  precaution.  .  ." 

Mrs.  Tufnell,  who  was  carving  the  beef,  let  rest  the  hand 
that  held  the  knife,  while  she  shot  a  look  of  scorn  at  her 
husband,  as  much  as  to  say:  "It's  a  nice  kind  of  man  I  mar- 
ried, isn't  it?  A  chucker-out!"  He  had  more  drink  than 
usual,  and  she  was  annoyed,  especially  as  Gombarov  was  there 
to  see  her  shame. 

Mr.  Tufnell  caught  that  look,  and  winking  at  Gombarov 
went  on: 

"Well,  I  ain't  told  you  yet  that  other  yarn  about  a  woman 
with  a  black  eye.  She  had  a  whole  litter  of  kids,  too!  It's 
funny  the  number  of  kids  all  females  with  a  black  eye  have. 
It  was  as  if  that's  the  way  brats  were  made.  .  .  .  Well,  com- 
ing back  to  this  female  with  the  black  eye,  I  said  to  'er,  just 
to  start  the  conversation  going,  to  be  social-like:  'Did  your 
'usband  give  you  that  eye,  ma'am?'  'Me  'usband?'  says  she. 
'Bless  ye,  no!  Why  Vs  more  a  friend  than  a  'usband! '  " 

Gombarov  burst  out  laughing.  Mrs.  Tufnell,  too,  over- 
108 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

coming  her  aversion,  smiled,  as  she  sat  down  before  her  roast 
beef,  potatoes  and  cabbage. 

Tufnell,  beaming  at  his  success,  thought  to  follow  it  up 
with  maudlin  tactics. 

"Darling!"  he  said,  between  mouthfuls,  poking  a  forefinger 
into  his  wife's  ample  side,  to  her  obvious  annoyance. 

"Love!"  he  said,  repeating  the  performance. 

"You  know  you  don't  mean  it!" 

"Pet!"  he  went  on. 

"Sweetheart!"  was  his  next  effort.    Then: 

"Treasure!" 

"Precious  one!" 

"Little  one!" 

In  each  case  the  inevitable  forefinger  emphasized  the  word, 
and  it  was  hard  to  tell  which  annoyed  her  more,  the  action  or 
the  word.  But  he  was  proud  of  his  inexhaustible  love  vocabu- 
lary and  took  care  not  to  use  the  same  word  twice.  He  con- 
tinued: 

"Dove!" 

"Duck!" 

"Lamb!" 

"I  suppose  you'll  want  me  with  mint  sauce,"  said  she, 
breaking  her  silence,  much  to  his  delight.  "Well,  go  on  with 
your  blooming  barnyard!" 

"Bon-bon!" 

"Sugar-candy!" 

"Turkish  delight!" 

"I've  noticed  you  'aven't  called  me  your  whiskey  and  soda 
yet!"  she  retorted. 

"I  was  leading  up  to  that." 

She  saw  her  mistake,  but  it  was  too  late. 
109 


BABEL 

"There's  a  dear!"  he  pursued  his  advantage.  "And  I'm 
sure  Mr.  Gombarov  wouldn't  mind  having  a  drop." 

"You'll  have  to  get  it  yourself,"  said  Mrs.  Tufnell. 

He  got  up  and  fetched  the  bottle  and  syphon  from  the  cup- 
board. 

"Have  a  drop?"  he  asked  Gombarov. 

"No,  thank  you.    I  feel  too  hot." 

Tufnell  poured  some  out  for  himself  into  a  glass  and  gulped 
almost  the  whole  of  it  down.  Then  he  took  down  the  cage 
from  over  the  window,  and  poured  what  was  left  into  the 
little  water  bowl  inside  the  cage.  The  magpie  in  the  cage 
avidly  drank  its  contents,  and  presently  was  rolling  unsteadily 
on  its  perch,  to  the  great  delight  of  Mr.  Tufnell,  who  sat 
watching,  fascinated  by  the  droll  spectacle. 

"Baby!"  said  his  spouse,  contemptuously. 

"Baby  wants  some  more  milk!"  said  Mr.  Tufnell,  reaching 
out  for  the  bottle. 

But  Mrs.  Tufnell  was  quick  to  withdraw  the  bottle  out  of 
his  reach. 

"Baby  has  had  enough  milk.  More  than  is  good  for  him," 
she  said. 

He  made  no  protest,  but,  fascinated,  went  on  watching  the 
magpie  blinking,  as  it  rolled  from  side  to  side  on  its  perch. 
Caliban  had  at  last  created  a  mad  world  of  his  own  out  of  a 
magpie  and  a  mouthful  of  whiskey  and  soda,  and  it  pleased 
him  to  look  on  and  see  that  small  caged  universe  swinging  on 
its  orbit  and  two  blinking  eyes  answering  the  blink  of  his 
own. 

"  TEre's  looking  at  you,  old  boy!"  exclaimed  Tufnell,  pick- 
ing up  his  empty  glass  and  raising  it  in  the  bird's  direction. 

Mrs.  Tufnell  gave  another  scornful  look  and  said: 

"Looking  at  you!  Two  blinking  fools,  that's  what  I  call 
HO 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

you.  There's  something  to  be  said  for  the  bird.  Poor  thing, 
he  can't  'elp  himself.  But  you!  And  you  call  yourself 
a  man!" 

"Let  us  alone,  darling,"  he  said,  without  losing  his  temper. 
"The  bird's  'appy,  and  I'm  'appy.  Eh,  Mag?"  he  turned  to 
the  bird. 

"What  about  the  good  folk  that's  done  no  'arm  to  you 
that  you've  chucked  out  to-day?  Are  they  'appy  without 
roof  or  shelter?  To  think  of  me  marrying  a  chucker-out! 
Me  that  was  principal  boy  in  'Jack  and  the  Beanstalk'!" 

"Well,  what  about  it?"  he  asked,  taking  the  magpie  into 
his  hand.  "Someone's  got  to  do  the  chucking-out.  And  one's 
got  to  live.  In  this  blooming,  blinking  world  you've  got  to 
be  either  a  chucker-out  or  the  chucked  out.  As  for  'Jack 
and  the  Beanstalk,'  dearie,  you  can't  say  that  you  look  much 
like  the  beanstalk  now,"  and,  with  a  good-natured  grin,  he 
surveyed  her  tall,  portly  form,  without  a  straight  line  or  sharp 
corner  anywhere. 

"Yes,"  she  retorted,  "and  the  Jack  Tufnell  I  married  needn't 
'ave  looked  in  a  glass  to  see  a  dog  at  'is  feet."  She  glanced 
significantly  at  his  paunch,  which,  as  he  sat,  rested  on  his  lap 
like  a  small  globe. 

"That's  all  right,  dearie,"  he  laughed.  "There's  enough 
lap  left  for  you  to  sit  on!" 

"I  dare  say,  Jack  Tufnell,  if  I  had  as  many  whiskeys  and 
sodas  as  you,  I'd  see  a  good  deal  of  more  space  there  than 
I  see  now." 

"Not  a  bad  idea.  Try  it,  Nell.  It'll  do  you  good  to  see 
this  magpie  looking  like  a  blooming  ostrich." 

"If  I  could  see  that  bird  looking  like  an  ostrich,  then  I'm 
sure  I'd  see  you  looking  like  a  blinking  elephant,  and  not 
'arf  so  nice,  I'm  sure." 

Ill 


BABEL 

"Don't  say  that,  darling.  Remember  when  I  played  the 
'ind  legs  of  an  elephant  in  pantomime?  That's  when  I  first 
saw  'er,"  he  said,  turning  to  Gombarov.  "When  I  looked 
through  the  peep-holes  hi  the  hide  and  saw  'er,  my  'eart  kind 
o'  stopped.  Worse  luck,  my  legs  stopped,  and  the  front  legs 
moved  on  without  me— ha!  ha!— and  I  got  a  raking  over  the 
coals  from  the  boss.  She  was  in  tights,"  he  explained,  his 
maudlin  eyes  wandering  reminiscently  into  the  distance,  "and 
she  looked  as  neat  as  a  thoroughbred  in  the  Derby.  'Er  back 
was  turned  to  me,  and  I  ain't  seen  'er  face  yet  .  .  ." 

Suddenly,  without  a  word,  Mrs.  Tufnell  swept  out  of  the 
room. 

"Darling! "  he  shouted  after  her,  as  for  a  moment  he  released 
the  magpie,  which  he  held  against  his  bosom.  The  bird  flopped 
downward,  but  managed  to  find  a  grip  on  the  apex  of  its 
master's  paunch.  He  put  the  bird  back  in  the  cage  and  hung 
the  cage  up  hi  its  accustomed  place. 

"She's  'aving  a  cry,"  said  Tufnell,  and  added:  "It'll  do  'er 
good.  Women  are  queer  crittures,  God  bless  'em!"  and  he 
went  to  the  cupboard.  "Sure  you  won't  'ave  a  drop,  boy? 
It'll  do  you  good.  God  bless  the  stuff! " 

Gombarov's  sympathies  were  all  with  Mrs.  Tufnell.  But 
the  domestic  atmosphere  proved  too  much  for  him,  and  he 
ascended  to  his  own  little  back  room,  where,  if  he  looked  out 
of  the  window,  he  could  see  hundreds  of  grimy  roofs  and 
armies  of  chimney  pots.  If  he  chose  to  limit  his  gaze  to  the 
interior,  he  found  himself  examining  the  pictures  on  the  walls, 
scenes  and  views  typical  of  the  Victorian  era:  a  discreet  "Venus 
at  the  Bath"  distributed  by  a  soap  firm  hi  exchange  for  fifty 
coupons — her  arms  whole  that  she  might  hold  a  cake  of 
Cleanola  Soap  hi  her  hand;  a  tame  Nero,  resembling  a  Queen's 
Hall  performer,  rendering  a  violin  solo  amid  Roman  candle 
112 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

/ 

effects  and  falling  stage  screens;  a  Royal  Academy  "Spring," 
showing  a  scantily  dressed  flapper  holding  up  a  lapful  of 
daffodils  in  the  hem  of  her  nightie;  a  Royal  Academy 
"Innocence,"  certainly  guiltless  of  all  art;  lastly,  in  their  midst, 
and  the  mother  of  them  all,  the  inevitable  portrait  of  the  Queen, 
who  gave  the  name  to  her  long  reign,  and  without  being  auto- 
crat had  impressed  upon  her  era  the  familiar  characteristics 
known  as  Victorian.  There  was  the  inevitable  cosy  chair 
in  the  room,  large  enough  to  have  accommodated  and  encom- 
passed the  Queen's  own  spreading  formlessness,  and  as  with 
most  chairs  of  its  kind,  designed  for  comfort,  its  springs  had 
gone  wrong  and  protruded  upward  into  "our  poor  hero" — as 
the  Victorians  would  have  called  him.  Here  was  the  supreme 
Victorian  symbol:  this  chair  stood  for  the  great  illusion, 
Comfort;  Comfort  with  a  capital  C,  but  Comfort  with  the 
springs  gone  wrong.  This  chair  occupied  about  a  quarter 
of  Gombarov's  small  room  and  prevented  what  little  free- 
dom of  movement  he  might  have  had.  His  efforts  to  relegate 
it  to  a  corner  of  the  room  were  constantly  frustrated  by 
Mrs.  Tufnell,  who  replaced  it  in  the  exact  spot  it  had  stood 
in  before,  without  a  deviation  of  so  much  as  an  eighth  of  an 
inch.  The  linoleum  bore  the  impressions  of  its  four  castors, 
so  that  it  was  not  hard  for  Mrs.  Tufnell  to  arrive  at  such 
precise  results. 

On  the  mantelpiece  and  chest  of  drawers,  both  overhung  with 
tawdry,  frippery  draperies,  reposed  heterogeneous  collections  of 
bric-a-brac  and  gew-gaws,  familiar  to  British  households,  the 
latest  addition  being  a  clay  statuette,  with  the  inscription, 
"One  of  the  B  Troys";  it  was  a  grotesque  conception  of  a  Bond 
Street  type  of  young  man  with  a  monocle,  as  such  a  type  existed 
in  the  popular  imagination. 

"Something  to  make  your  room  cheerful! "  said  Mrs.  Tufnell, 


BABEL 

as  she  deposited  it  on  the  mantelpiece  in  triumph,  and  added: 
"It  cost  no  more  than  a  bob."  He  saw  that  she  had  bought  it 
for  his  benefit,  so  it  was  useless  to  protest.  He  reflected  upon 
the  fact  that  this  was  an  age  of  museums,  and  that  every 
house,  however  poor,  was  a  museum,  a  repository  of  articles, 
great  and  small,  due  to  the  machine  being  able  to  turn  them 
out  in  huge  quantities.  But  there  was  no  beauty.  It  was 
decidedly  a  quantitative,  not  a  qualitative  civilisation. 

"All  these  things  are  waiting  to  be  destroyed,"  said  Gom- 
barov  to  himself,  wish  being  father  to  the  thought. 

When  Gombarov  reached  his  room,  he  sat  down  in  his  other 
chair,  a  rickety  thing  that  had  been  too  often  sat  upon,  and 
its  threatened  collapse  was  a  pleasure  to  look  forward  to. 
From  this  precarious  position  he  surveyed  the  treasures  of 
the  room,  tiring  of  which,  he  turned  to  look  out  of  the  window 
at  the  rows  of  chimney-pots  and  the  numerous  bird  cages 
hanging  outside  the  windows  against  drab  walls,  which  appeared 
the  more  drab  for  the  relieving  touch  of  window  boxes  and 
flower-pots.  This  love  of  birds  and  flowers  astonished  him 
since  his  arrival  in  England.  But  he  grew  tired  of  observing, 
and  was  soon  in  the  street. 

Before  the  public  house  round  the  corner  a  barrel-organ  was 
playing,  and  six  small  old  women,  black-garbed,  in  two  trios 
facing,  were  madly  swaying  to  its  common  tune.  The  arms  of 
each  trio  were  entwined  round  one  another  at  the  shoulder,  as 
heads  bent  downward  and  bodies  arched  into  two  impulsive 
wave-like  curves,  torn  skirts  uplifted,  they  tripped  forward, 
towards  the  other;  then,  in  the  contact,  the  curves  reversed, 
the  heads  were  thrown  back,  the  stomachs  forward,  forming 
the  apex  of  new  curves,  and  thus,  still  facing,  they  tripped 
back  from  one  another.  The  faces  of  the  dancers  were  deeply 
furrowed,  and  crowning  little  clumps  of  black  material,  which 
114 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

passed  for  hats,  gave  one  more  touch  of  quaintness  to  these 
grotesque  figures,  shapeless,  no  doubt,  to  the  ideal  beauty 
seeker,  shapeful  to  the  artist  of  character,  the  gargoyle  maker. 
They  might  have  enacted  the  parts  of  the  old  witches  round  the 
cauldron  in  "Macbeth,"  and  might  have  been  drawn  by 
Daumier,  Goya  or  Hokusai.  They  were  curiously  of  eternity, 
changeless  of  type,  and  were,  in  this  sense,  both  old  and 
young.  It  was  uncanny  to  see  such  youthful  resilience  in 
such  old  bones,  such  ardent  rhythm  in  such  unrhythmic  shapes, 
decked  in  tatters.  The  barrel-organ  rolled  away,  the  crowd 
scattered,  four  of  the  women  walked  into  the  public  bar,  the 
other  two  remained  behind  and  over  the  grating  in  the  pave- 
ment performed  a  certain  rite  usually  performed  in  privacy. 

Gombarov  observed  everything  with  child-like  wonder,  and 
the  ribald  and  the  vulgar  seemed  to  contain  for  him  not  less 
of  the  essence  of  revelation  than  the  refined  and  the  solemn  in 
this  atmosphere  of  old-worldliness,  breathing  as  it  did  ancient 
life  and  emanating  certain  indefinable  energies  which  could 
only  come  from  an  accumulation  of  racial  and  historic 
experience. 

He  had  also  been  observed,  for  he  heard  ironic  cockney 
voices  commenting  on  his  appearance: 

"I  sa-ay,  Bill,  is  it  Bi-kon  or  is  it  Shikes-pirr?" 

Gombarov  was  amazed  that  the  famous  literary  controversy 
should  have  penetrated  the  consciousness  of  Old  Kent  Road. 
And  he  could  not  help  laughing  at  the  jest  made  at  his  expense. 
This  was  not  the  first  time  that  he  had  been  the  butt  of 
Elephant  and  Castle  wit,  and  he  had  quite  decided  to  reduce 
the  length  of  his  hair  and  to  shed  his  artistic  effects  for  more 
commonplace  ones,  less  open  to  the  assault  of  cockney  ridicule. 
'He  jumped  on  a  'bus  going  towards  Marble  Arch. 
"5 


BABEL 


MARBLE  ARCH 

It  was  different  at  Marble  Arch.  The  most  eccentric  appear- 
ances excited  comparatively  little  comment  here.  It  was  the 
market  place  of  eccentric  appearances,  as  it  was  also  the 
market  place  of  international  ideas,  or  crumbs  of  ideas,  such  as 
were  picked  up  by  half-educated  middlemen  and  dispensed  to 
the  rabble. 

A  little  old  man,  shabbily  dressed,  bore  a  piece  of  pasteboard 
in  his  hat,  with  the  inscription:  "I  am  Tom  Adamson,  of 
Glasgow,  and  I  am  looking  for  my  wife,  whom  I  lost  sight  of 
thirty-nine  years  ago."  Who  has  said  that  romance  has  van- 
ished from  life?  Here  was  this  scraggy  little  man.  .  .  .  But 
Gombarov  was  listening  to  the  couple  behind  him: 

"The  darling! "  a  woman's  voice  was  saying.  "How  he  must 
miss  her!" 

"A  lucky  man,  only  he  doesn't  know  it! "  was  the  reply  from 
her  male  companion. 

"Brute!"  said  the  woman. 

Another  old  man,  tall,  hatless,  with  long  white  hair  reaching 
down  to  the  shoulders,  and  patriarchal  beard,  shabby,  without 
laces  in  his  torn  boots,  stood  supporting  a  large  placard  on  a 
tall  staff.  The  placard  bore  the  inscription:  "THE  MILLEN- 
NIUM IS  AT  HAND."  Attached,  lower,  to  the  same  staff, 
was  a  device  containing  various  penny  and  half-penny  leaflets 
written  by  prominent  Millenniolites.  One  of  these,  called  "The 
Millenniogram,"  purported  to  be,  in  the  words  of  the  sub-title, 
"Absolute  Mathematical  Proof  of  the  Near  Coming  of  Our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ."  It  was  by  Thomas  Smith,  M.A.,  Pro- 
fessor of  Mathematics  at  the  Millennium  Institute,  "Author 
116 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

of  The  Baconigram':  Being  a  series  of  diagrams  demonstrating, 
in  face  of  all  contrary  assertion,  amply,  and  once  and  for  all, 
that  Bacon  wrote  Shakespeare."  Gombarov  found  "The 
Millenniogram"  a  big  ha'penny  worth,  containing  as  it  did  a 
dozen  or  more  intricate  charts,  in  the  first  of  which  the  learned 
professor  demonstrated  to  his  own  satisfaction  that  all 
astronomers  had  made  a  very  serious  miscalculation  in  the 
age  of  the  world  by  seventeen  seconds.  Having  thus  established 
his  authority  with  his  readers,  he  proceeded  to  make  various 
calculations:  There  were  so  many  words  in  the  Old  Testament, 
so  many  in  the  New.  If  you  subtracted  the  latter  from  the 
former  you  arrived  at  such  and  such  a  result.  That  number 
had  to  be  borne  in  mind.  Then,  there  were  so  many  verses 
in  the  Old  Testament,  so  many  in  the  New.  If  you  subtracted 
the  latter  from  the  former  you  arrived  at  such  and  such  a 
result.  Again,  you  had  to  bear  the  number  in  mind.  Then, 
there  were  so  many  chapters  in  the  Old  Testament,  so  many 
in  the  New.  If  you  subtracted  the  latter  from  the  former  you 
arrived  at  such  and  such  a  result.  You  took  the  resulting 
numbers  and  divided  the  first  by  the  second,  and  the  result 
by  the  third.  With  a  little  more  juggling  you  arrived  at  the 
figure  "1914,"  the  year  predestined  for  Christ's  second  coming. 
There  were  also  various  cryptograms,  acrostics  and  other 
devices  to  establish  the  prophecy  in  the  eyes  of  the  credulous. 

Many  speakers  were  ranged  on  portable  speaking  platforms 
just  within  the  entrance  to  the  Park  and  tried  to  outcry  one 
another  in  advertising  their  respective  spiritual  wares. 

Here  was  a  pious  looking,  dour  Scot,  above  whose  head  was 
a  signboard  bearing  the  legend,  "The  Lost  Tribes  of  Israel." 
On  the  reading  stand  before  him  was  a  volume  of  the  Scriptures, 
117 


BABEL 

from  which,  now  and  then  citing  a  passage,  he  was  demon- 
strating to  his  audience,  in  a  loud  voice  and  with  a  gesticulating 
hand,  that  the  Ten  Lost  Tribes  were  none  other  than  the 
Scots  themselves. 

Next  to  the  Scot  was  a  Socialist  speaker,  who,  taking 
advantage  of  his  neighbour's  presence,  shouted  in  a  loud  voice 
that  he  didn't  give  a  hoot  as  to  who  were  and  what  became 
of  the  Ten  Lost  Tribes,  but  that  he  was  concerned  with  the 
fact  that  certain  members  of  the  remaining  Two — he  need  not 
mention  their  names — were  exceedingly  active  in  doing  "the 
Joseph  stunt,"  cornering  the  world's  markets  and  grinding 
down  the  poor. 

"Hear!  Hear!"  shouted  many  voices. 

While  he  paused  for  a  while  to  collect  himself  for  another 
onslaught  the  voice  of  the  Theosophist  advocate  on  the  other 
side  of  him  intruded  upon  his  audience.  The  words,  "karma," 
"ego,"  "subliminal  self,"  "reincarnation,"  "astral  body,"  "next 
existence,"  and  other  familiar  terms  of  theosophical  thought, 
drifted  in  on  the  Socialist's  silence.  The  latter  was  quick  to 
take  up  the  cue. 

"Ladies  and  gentlemen! "  he  resumed,  "if  we  are  not  worrying 
about  the  Lost  Tribes  of  Israel,  we  are  not  going  to  lose  any 
sleep  about  what's  going  to  happen  to  us  when  we  are  dead, 
are  we?  The  Theosophist  gentleman  next  door  thinks  this  is 
going  to  be  an  awfully  nice  world  for  some  of  us  four  hundred 
thousand  years  from  now!" 

The  crowd  broke  out  into  guffaws.    The  speaker  went  on: 

"A  world  without  work,  without  trouble,  without  poverty, 
no  rich  men  to  order  you  about,  your  morning  bacon  and  eggs 
coming  to  you  without  so  much  as  lifting  a  finger,  bushes 
118 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

everywhere  with  steak  and  kidney  pies  growing  on  'em,  spigots 
spouting  gin  and  bitter  and  Guinness  and  old  ale  instead  of 
water;  that's  what  you  are  promised  by  the  gentleman  next 
door — four  hundred  thousand  years  from  now!  Ladies  and 
gentlemen,  you  have  something  to  look  forward  to!  Keep 
your  eye  on  the  clocks,  and  when  you  have  got  'free  of  the 
wheel,'  to  use  my  friend's  language,  which  is  a  little  matter 
of  four  hundred  thousand  years,  a  mere  bagatelle,  which  I'm 
sure  you  won't  mind  waiting  for,  you  will  have  such  a  good 
time  when  it  does  come.  Isn't  it  too  bad,  the  Capitalist  has 
got  to  wait  just  as  long  as  you  have?  In  the  meantime  the 
poor  fellow  is  going  to  be  miserable  on  his  pittance  of,  say, 
four  hundred  thousand  a  year,  hi  his  palace  in  Park  Lane, 
with  a  mere  dozen  servants,  a  wife  in  silks  and  satins,  perhaps 
a  little  Gaiety  girl  on  the  side  ...  a  motor  car  or  two, 
Havannah  cigars,  wines  and  liqueurs,  and  what  not — poor 
fellow!  Can't  we — that  is  you  and  I — give  him  a  hand  to 
free  him  of  his  wheel?  Can't  you  and  I  do  with  a  little  of 
his  Karma,  a  bit  of  a  drive  hi  my  own  car,  eh?  Are  you 
content  to  eat  winkles  and  sassingers  and  mashed  while  he  is 
suffering  on  caviare  and  roast  duck  and  hothouse  pease  and 
strawberries  in  January,  and  can  afford  gout  and  liver  com- 
plaint at  all  seasons?  Are  you  going  to  grouse  when  he  eats 
grouse?  I  ask  you,  what  do  you  get  to  eat  when  you  are  out 
of  work  and  hungry?  You  go  to  some  soup  kitchen  and  are 
given  a  plateful  of  slops  they  call  soup,  and  if  you  swallow 
a  bit  of  bread  afterward  you  can  hear  it  splash!" 

Laughter  greeted  the  speaker's  sally,  and  cries  came  of 
"Hear!  Hear!" 

While  the  speaker  paused  to  wipe  his  brow,  the  low,  clear 
119 


BABEL 

voice  of  the  Theosophist  made  itself  audible  again.  "Karma 
teaches  us,"  he  was  asserting,  "that  when  men  suffer,  they  do 
so  through  their  own  past  mistakes  and  ill-doings,  so  that  in 
countries  where  Karma  is  understood  by  peasants  and  labourers, 
the  belief  causes  them  to  face  their  troubles  without  railing 
against  God  or  neighbour." 

"I  quite  agree  with  my  Theosophical  friend,"  the  Socialist 
speaker  was  again  quick  to  pick  up  the  cue.  "You  men  suffer 
through  your  own  past  mistakes.  You  have  let  a  few  men 
get  rich  at  your  expense,  and  if  you  are  being  exploited  by 
them  you  deserve  to  be.  You  possess  the  power  to  be  your 
own  lords  and  masters,  for  there  are  so  many  of  you — are  you 
going  to  let  a  few  idle  men  manage  you?  Or  are  you  going 
to  Church  to  pray?  Perhaps  you  will  find  comfort  in  joining 
the  Theosophical  Society,  which  will  no  doubt  teach  you  to 
live  on  what  they  call  the  higher  plane,  on  fine  thoughts 
instead  of  bread  and  meat.  If  you  are  wise,  you  will  be  ruled 
by  your  friends.  'Proletariat  of  the  whole  world,  unite.  You 
have  nothing  to  lose  but  your  chains! '  Economic  chains  alone 
hold  you  where  you  are.  Get  rid  of  the  chains  first,  think  of 
the  higher  plane  afterwards.  Feed  your  stomachs  on  the 
ground-floor,  and  you  can  then  have  enough  strength  to  climb 
upstairs  .  .  ." 

Again  the  speaker  paused  to  take  breath,  while  the  Theoso- 
phist was  enunciating:  "In  the  words  of  Mrs.  Besant:  'Let  a 
soul  radiate  in  every  direction  love  and  compassion,  and 
thoughts  of  hatred  can  find  nothing  to  which  they  can  attach 
themselves  .  .  .' " 

Presently  there  was  a  commotion  in  both  crowds,  and  there 
was  a  common  movement  to  the  left.  Gombarov  saw  that  the 
I2O 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

excitement  was  caused  by  the  disappearance  of  the  Lost  Tribes 
advocate  and  his  replacement  by  a  new  arrival,  a  jolly  little 
round  man,  who,  before  taking  his  place  on  the  platform, 
with  the  aid  of  an  assistant  unfurled  a  red  banner  bearing  the 
following  inscription: 


The   Only  Wise   Lovers   of   Mankind, 

Considerate   Masters   of   Animals,   and 

Grateful  Disciples  of  the 

ONLY  TRUE  GOD, 

THE  INFINITE  GOVERNOR 
OF  NATURE 

FOR  THE  ANNIHILATION  OF  ALL 
FALSE  GODS 

Like  KRISHNA,  JEHOVAH,  ALLAH,  etc.,  for 
the  Propagation  of  Humanitarian  Deism,  and 
for  the  Conversion  of  Jews,  Christians,  Moham- 
medans, Atheists  and  other  Unbelievers  and 

Sinners 

Into  Human  Deists. 


Many  of  the  crowd  gravitated  towards  the  new  arrival  as 
they  would  towards  a  new  clown  at  the  circus.  For  not  a 
few,  like  Gombarov,  came  here  to  be  amused.  He  grinned 
with  the  rest  at  the  amazing  presumption  displayed  on  the 
banner,  and  waited,  with  one  eye  on  the  threatening  sky.  No 
121 


BABEL 

sooner  had  the  little  man  mounted  the  platform  and  rubbed 
his  chubby  hands  as  a  preliminary  than  a  sudden  swift 
shower  struck  the  spot,  causing  "the  grateful  disciple  of  the 
Only  True  God"  and  his  audience  to  flee  for  shelter,  not, 
however,  before  the  little  man,  with  smiling  presence  of  mind, 
explained  that  this  untimely  visitation  of  the  elements  was 
not  due  to  any  temperamental  malignancy  on  the  part  of 
the  Infinite  God  of  Nature,  but  was  rather  the  result  of  a 
conspiracy  on  the  part  of  the  False  Gods  against  the  True 
Faith.  There  was  every  reason  to  believe  the  little  man  to  be 
correct  in  his  supposition,  for  strangely  enough,  hardly  two 
hundred  yards  away  a  suffragette  was  haranguing  a  crowd  in 
comparative  immunity  from  the  downpour,  but  not  so  free 
from  heckling. 

As  Gombarov  came  up,  he  heard  a  workingman  shouting  at 
the  speaker: 

"You  women  want  the  vote  so  you  can  make  laws  against 
us  men!" 

"We  only  want  to  protect  our  interests,"  said  the  speaker. 
"As  for  that,  you  men  have  made  laws  long  enough  against 
us  women.  We  must  protect  our  interests!" 

"That  means  you  want  to  stop  our  beer,"  shouted  another 
man. 

"Milk  is  more  important  than  beer,"  replied  the  woman. 

"For  them  as  likes  it! "  called  out  the  last  interrupter.  "Milk 
don't  agree  with  me,  not  since  I've  been  weaned.  .  .  ." 

"Sure  you've  been  weaned?  Just  like  a  man!  Always 
thinking  of  his  own  tummy  first! "  This  sally  provoked  laugh- 
ter. She  pressed  her  point.  "Don't  you  see  how  selfish  that 
is?  Do  you  know  who  was  the  first  person  to  be  shot  in 
the  riots  in  the  North  when  you  men  were  trying  to  get  the 
vote?  It  was  a  woman!" 

"That  was  because  she  was  in  the  wa-a-y ! "  cried  out  a  cock- 
122 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

ney  wit,  whereupon   the  laugh  went  against  the  woman. 

"Cowar-rds!"  she  shouted  at  the  top  of  her  voice,  showing 
her  temper  for  the  first  time. 

"We  may  be  cowards,"  retorted  some  one,  "but  we've  got 
enough  horse  sense  not  to  trust  our  women,  children  and 
lunatics  with  poison!" 

"Yes,  that's  what  you've  made  of  the  vote — poison!" 
replied  the  suffragette.  "Your  man-made  laws  are  a  shame 
to  civilisation!" 

"A  shime  to  civilisy-tion,  is  it?"  shouted  the  cockney  wit 
who  had  spoken  before.  "What  I  sa-a-y  is,  it  would  be  a 
shime  to  ma-y-ke  it  worse!" 

"Shut  up!     Give  the  lassie  a  chance!"  shouted  another. 

Gombarov  enjoyed  these  duels  of  wit.  He  loved  going 
among  these  crowds,  which  always  reminded  him  of  stage 
crowds,  the  crowds  of  Shakespeare.  There  was  always  a 
miniature,  a  stage  element  about  these  English  crowds,  and 
you  were  conscious  of  the  dramatis  personae,  of  the  inevitable 
First  Citizen,  Second  Citizen,  Third  Citizen,  of  Voices  in  the 
Crowd,  of  Dissenting  Voices,  of  Approving  Voices,  of  voices 
ebbing  and  flowing,  of  voices  warm  or  hostile  or  both  com- 
mingling, according  to  the  measure  of  the  orator's  persuasive- 
ness, wit,  reason  or  personality.  And  how  different  the  temper 
from  that  of  an  American  crowd,  before  which  no  man  dared 
venture  to  speak  against  God,  Government,  or  the  Established 
Order  without  encountering  that  most  valid  of  arguments:  a 
brickbat,  a  bully's  fist,  or  a  policeman's  truncheon!  This  differ- 
ence amazed  him.  He  had  seen  so  much  intolerance,  had  been 
so  crushed  by  it  into  a  self-corrosive  silence,  that  this  common 
tolerance,  this  practical  expression  of  the  love  of  fair  play, 
gave  him  the  delicious  feeling  of  breathing  free  air  after  con- 
finement within  prison  walls.  What  finer  thing  than  personal 
123 


BABEL 

liberty  was  there  upon  this  earth?  Surely,  it  existed  on  this 
island,  if  anywhere.  And  he  thought  of  the  words  of  John 
Stuart  Mill:  "All  silencing  of  discussion  is  an  assumption  of 
infallibility.  If  all  mankind  were  of  one  opinion  and  only 
one  man  against  it,  all  mankind  would  have  no  more  right  to 
silence  that  one  man  than  he,  if  he  had  the  power,  to  silence 
all  mankind." 

Again  he  saw  a  connection  between  big  and  trivial  things. 
He  began  to  have  a  glimmering  as  to  what  underlay  the 
otherwise  inexplicable  rudeness  of  small  London  shopkeepers, 
who,  if  you  were  dissatisfied,  did  not  appear  to  care  a  hang 
whether  you  bought  anything  or  not  and  allowed  a  prospective 
customer  to  depart  as  if  money  were  of  no  moment  to  them. 
For  every  great  virtue  has  a  fault,  and  every  great  fault  has 
a  virtue.  And  independence  sometimes  leads  to  insult,  exces- 
sive courtesy  to  cringing. 

He  saw  that  the  significance  of  Marble  Arch  was  that  it 
represented  the  modern  world  and  its  contending  ideas  in 
microcosm.  There  was  no  unity,  the  world  was  here  visible 
in  all  its  fragmentary  nature,  restless  in  all  its  fractious  con- 
tradiction. Thus  Babel  must  have  been  before  its  fall.  But 
for  tolerance,  the  by-product  of  a  complex,  many-tongued 
civilisation,  there  seemed  to  be  little  that  kept  men  from  jump- 
ing at  each  other's  throat.  .  .  .  Only  some  great  intolerance, 
arising  from  some  common  danger,  might  weld  together  the 
fragments  of  humanity  on  this  island  into  one  functioning 
body,  with  one  single-expressioned  face  .  .  .  Gombarov  medi- 
tated upon  a  strange  paradox  of  life.  Tolerance  did  not,  as 
one  might  suppose,  unite  a  world;  on  the  contrary,  it  broke 
it  up,  as  it  implied  that  a  community  with  a  million  persons 
might  have  a  million  different  opinions.  A  community  of  a 
million  with  a  million  opinions  was  a  house  a  million  times 
124 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

divided  against  itself.  Only  a  common  faith  could  unite,  but 
there  was  no  common  faith,  and  a  million  discordant  voices 
rose  up  to  a  godless  heaven,  which,  were  it  not  godless,  could 
hardly,  with  the  best  intentions,  be  expected  to  distinguish 
the  separate  entreaties  of  so  many-voiced  a  prayer.  Yet  tol- 
erance was  a  fine  thing,  and  unity  was  a  fine  thing.  Could 
not  the  world  have  one  and  the  other  at  the  same  time?  .  .  . 
But  here  was  the  appalling  thing:  Tolerance,  one  of  the  finest 
products  of  civilisation,  was  a  weapon  civilisation  had  seem- 
ingly created  for  its  own  destruction;  for  if  there  was  no 
common  faith  and  unity  and  it  was  a  thing  all  of  warring 
fragments,  what  was  it  worth?  .  .  . 

Gombarov  tried  not  to  think.  He  proceeded  deeper  into 
Hyde  Park  and  observed  the  numerous  clasped  couples  under 
the  trees.  The  lovers  held  each  other  in  tight  embrace,  silently 
and  immovably,  and  here  and  there  a  man  bent  over  a  woman's 
upturned  face,  his  lips  on  hers,  as  if  drinking,  and  still  was 
their  embrace,  as  if  they  were  figures  at  Madame  Tussaud's. 

Gombarov  was  sadly  thinking  of  his  Winifred,  so  far  away 
hi  Paris. 

HAMPSTEAD   HEATH 

All  the  world  loves  a  plot.  It  does  not  love  the  lonely  lover, 
and  it  loves  three  lovers  better  than  two.  A  loves  B,  B  loves 
C,  who  is  A's  best  friend.  The  world  is  delighted.  Some 
one  is  bound  to  get  left.  That  is  called  a  "triangle."  When 
it  is  not  a  triangle,  then  it  is  a  circle,  a  vicious  circle,  a  circle 
of  circumstance  or  a  circle  of  "psychic  complexes,"  a  sort  of 
whirlpool  in  which  the  victims  move  round  and  round  and 
no  one  can  get  out.  The  world  outside  has  ceased  to  exist  for 
the  persons  within  this  triangle  or  circle.  It  has  also  ceased 
to  exist  for  the  spectators  forming  this  outside  world,  the 
125 


BABEL 

army  of  novelists  and  the  greater  army  of  novel  readers. 

Of  the  greater  plot,  what  might  be  called  the  all-embracing 
divine-diabolic  conspiracy,  which  contains  and  absorbs  all 
petty  "plots"  and  "vicious  circles,"  few  have  any  conception. 
For  such  as  have,  "life  is  a  caravanserai,  men  come  and  go." 
Only  the  nomad,  the  lone  figure  against  the  horizon,  the  person 
solitary  in  a  crowd,  unrelated  as  it  were  to  any  other  person 
or  persons,  can  comprehend  his  relationship  to  the  unresting 
elements,  the  continuity  of  life,  the  continuity  of  change  itself. 
No  triangle  or  circle  is  there  to  imprison  him,  he  is  related 
to  life,  he  is  a  moving  atom  in  this  eternally  tempestuous, 
quivering  universe,  ever  drifting,  ever  seeking  contact,  a  pos- 
sible inter-relation,  with  some  other  atom,  perhaps  finding 
none,  or  concentrating  itself  in  momentary  responses,  and 
again  drifting  on. 

Where  but  in  London  could  a  stranger  find  himself  so 
peculiarly  aware  of  his  own  separate  entity  juxtaposed  to  a 
universe  of  separate  entities?  Just  as  Gombarov  never  lost 
the  exhilarating  sense  of  being  on  an  island,  so  he  never  quite 
lost  the  sometimes  terrifying  consciousness  of  being  one  among 
London's  seven  or  eight  million.  His  immediate  family  was 
in  America.  His  other  relations,  with  whom  he  had  lost  all 
contact,  were  in  Russia.  Winifred  was  in  Paris.  He  was 
quite  alone. 

There  could  be,  therefore,  no  sense  of  circumscribed  plot  in 
life  as  he  saw  it,  but  a  kind  of  perpetual  continuity,  as  of  a 
flowing  river,  in  whose  waters,  as  Herakleitos  said,  "You  could 
not  stop  twice  ...  for  other  and  yet  other  waters  are  ever 
flowing  on."  There  was  implied  in  this  a  change  of  scenery 
and  of  persons,  a  sense  of  things  eternally  coming  and  going, 
of  diverse  living  craft  forever  drifting  by,  on  and  on.  But 
the  things  and  persons  and  scenes  that  thus  drifted  into  his 
126 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

life  or  vision  and  drifted  out  again  were  in  no  sense  a  loss, 
but  left  a  residue,  a  grain  of  sand,  an  atom  of  ignition,  a  phos- 
phorescent irony,  the  accumulation  of  which,  insinuating  them- 
selves into  his  system,  acted  as  clashing  irritants  and  trans- 
formed his  personality,  as  it  were,  chemically,  and  without 
knowledge  other  than  a  consciousness  of  pain. 

In  his  solitude,  he  sought  distraction,  explored  London, 
visited  public  houses,  talked  to  strangers,  who  often  at  first 
meeting  told  him  the  stories  of  their  lives,  and  he  absorbed 
everything  as  a  river  of  life  its  tributaries.  Everything  was 
significant,  nothing  trivial.  And,  as  he  thought  of  life,  his 
life  in  particular,  it  seemed  to  him  that  life  was  not  a  novel 
in  the  accepted  convention,  but  rather  a  collection  of  tales, 
temperamentally  attuned  to  a  single  character,  whose  person- 
ality attracted  experience  peculiar  to  itself;  in  short,  life  was 
not  a  "plot,"  but  a  collection,  a  pattern,  of  plots,  with  at  least 
one  single-coloured  thread  meandering  along  through  the  design 
to  give  it  unity.  Thirsting  for  adventures,  he  became  the 
repository  of  other  people's  adventures,  which,  as  they  churned 
over  in  his  soul,  he  made  his  own.  But  on  occasions  he  actively, 
if  only  as  an  accessory,  took  part  in  them,  and  drew  sorrow 
or  joy  or  ironic  pathos  from  casual  persons  as  tunes  from  a 
musical  instrument;  and  even  a  slight,  plaintive  tune,  not 
unlike  a  folk  song,  sometimes  contained  elements  of  living 
folk  tragedy,  meaningful  in  spite  of  its  quiet,  low-pitched 
monotone,  that  acted  as  a  deadening  veil  over  life  repressed, 
maimed  and  muffled.  One  such  trivial,  significant  tune 
Gombarov  drew  one  evening  from  a  girl  on  Hampstead 
Heath;  it  was  the  tune  of  all  dumb,  hurt  things.  Trivial,  yet 
it  made  him  think  of  thousands  of  hurt  lives,  ground  down  by 
the  Machine,  in  the  name  of  Progress,  that  Moloch  of  Molochs! 

He  was  walking  along  moodily.  Darkness  was  beginning  to 
127 


BABEL 

descend  on  Hampstead  Heath,  to  submerge  its  hillocks,  hollows 
and  trees  in  a  purple  mist.  The  lovers  welcomed  it,  for  it 
covered  them,  and  it  made  the  lonely  brood.  He,  of  the  lonely, 
could  see  the  recumbent  everywhere.  They  scattered  themselves 
across  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  heath,  blissfully  quiescent. 
And  it  seemed  strange  to  see  so  many  human  beings  lying  still 
under  an  open  sky,  bosomed  against  the  bare  earth.  They 
evoked  in  his  mind  the  picture  of  a  battlefield,  of  himself  a 
lone  sentry.  .  .  . 

He  emerged  at  last  in  the  Spaniards  Road.  The  night  was 
warm  and  languorous,  and  the  promenaders,  grown  too  dense  in 
numbers  to  be  silhouetted  singly,  swarmed  between  the  rows 
of  intermittent  dim  lights  and  merged  into  an  animated 
arabesque,  strangely  unreal  in  the  ambient  blueness.  A 
Saturday  night  crowd,  they  shambled  along  slowly,  stodgily 
gay,  arm-linked — man  to  woman,  woman  to  man — while  the 
unaccompanied  girls  invited  the  scrutiny  of  alert-eyed  men 
who  stood  ranged  along  the  rail  and  made  advances  when  the 
quarry  appeared  attractive  and  the  chance  offered.  Motor 
cycles  rested  in  the  road  in  small  groups  and  flashed  their 
powerful  rays,  and  the  riders,  dehumanised,  grotesquely  fierce 
in  costumes  of  khaki  and  armour-like  headgear,  were  surrounded 
by  girls  in  coloured,  shape-outlining  jerseys,  attracted  hither 
by  these  masculine  apparitions  mounted  on  iron  steeds,  yet 
hardly  mounted,  for  they  seemed  to  be  as  much  a  part  of  the 
machine  as  the  human  body  had  been  a  part  of  the  centaur. 
Here  was  the  modern  version,  the  mechanical  centaur.  Pres- 
ently, one  of  these  monstrous  forms  would  be  seen  to  lean 
forward,  touch  a  part  of  itself,  and  the  whole  mechanism,  as 
if  suddenly  awakened,  would  start  to  vibrate  and  snort.  Then 
an  arm,  stretching  forward,  would  clasp  a  willing  girlish  form, 
and  lift  it  on  to  a  small  seat  at  the  back.  There  is  a  sense  of 
128 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

exhilaration  in  the  captive's  dimly  lit-up  face,  as  sitting  sidewise, 
she  holds  on  with  a  small  hand  to  her  abductor's  shoulder  and 
dangles  her  legs,  stockinged  in  gauze.  After  a  slow,  loud 
effort  the  machine  would  lurch  forward  and  suddenly  gathering 
its  strength  disappear  in  the  dark  with  the  effect  of  a  shot. 
Another,  violently  tremulous,  follows.  Chuk-chuk  goes  a  third, 
sending  out  intermittent  explosive  chortles.  Each  bears  its 
desired  burden,  exultant,  into  the  dark.  .  .  . 

His  depression  reasserted  itself,  a  loneliness  overcame  him. 
...  He  wanted  to  talk  to  some  one.  ...  He  hungered  for 
the  company  of  a  woman,  if  she  had  but  an  ounce  of  attraction 
in  her,  if  but  a  pleasing  voice.  His  was  a  fastidious  appetite, 
but  a  hungry  man  must  be  satisfied  with  a  crumb. 

Thus  preoccupied,  he  crossed  the  road  to  escape  the  banjo 
man  who  had  taken  up  a  position  and  begun  to  sing  that 
American  importation: 

//  you  ain't  got  no  money, 
You  needn't  come  around  .  .  . 

He  entered  a  narrow  passage  along  a  private  garden  wall.  Here 
everything  was  dark  and  still,  and  as  he  felt  his  way  his  eyes 
gradually  discerned  along  the  parallel  rail  numberless  clasped 
figures,  standing  silent  and  statuesque  in  mutual  immobility. 
A  bared,  ghostly  arm,  like  a  streak  of  moonlight,  showed  itself 
against  the  perceptible  yet  invisible  drab  of  man  and  spoke 
its  simple  eloquence.  Elsewhere,  beside  a  patch  of  white,  the 
light  of  a  cigarette  was  the  sole  witness  of  a  male  complement. 
The  trees,  sloping  downward,  sheltered  other  figures,  and  from 
the  gorse  came  sounds  of  mingled  laughter. 

He  retraced  his  steps  through  the  passage  and  re-emerged 
in  the  road.    A  casual  slender  figure  lured  him  on  and  to  his 
timid  greeting  sped  away  in  derision.     Tired,  and  desiring 
129 


BABEL 

cool  and  quiet,  he  once  more  descended  on  the  heath,  and 
sitting  down  in  a  remote,  deserted  spot,  closed  his  eyes  and 
rested.  Thus  he  sat  a  long  time. 

A  cough  near  by  recalled  him  to  himself.  He  turned  in  its 
direction.  Not  many  feet  away,  leaning  against  a  tree,  sat  a 
girl,  whose  face  he  could  not  see  and  who,  like  himself,  appeared 
to  be  alone.  Reassured  on  this  point,  he  timidly  crept  nearer, 
and  called  out  in  a  low  voice: 

"Do  you  mind  if  I  sit  near  you?" 

There  was  no  reply. 

He  edged  up  closer  and  repeated  his  question. 

Still  no  answer. 

He  got  quite  close.  In  the  dim  light  he  saw  a  pale  girl, 
who  appeared  to  have  a  pleasant  face,  though  he  could  not 
distinguish  her  features. 

Sitting  almost  at  her  feet,  he  again  asked  his  question,  this 
time  quite  loudly. 

He  thought  he  detected  a  look  of  surprise  on  her  face.  A 
slight  pause  followed,  then  she  said  quietly: 

"I  don't  mind."    She  added:  "You  see,  I'm  a  little  deaf." 

Again  a  silence.    Then  he  addressed  her: 

"Are  you  lonely?" 

"What  did  you  say?" 

"Are  you  lonely?"    This  time  louder. 

"I'm  used  to  it." 

"Mm  ...  so?    Been  deaf  long?" 

"These  past  three  years.  Got  it  at  the  factory.  A  chunk 
of  iron  flew  from  the  machine,  struck  the  right  side  of  my 
head  and  face.  Was  laid  up  for  two  months." 

"Hard  luck!"  he  said,  and  thought  of  what  he  should  say 
next.  He  drew  nearer,  and  was  quite  close  to  her  now.  He 
helped  himself  to  a  cigarette  from  his  case  with  great  delibera- 
130 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

tion,  which  gave  him  time  to  consider.  The  light  of  his  match, 
illumining  her  for  a  few  moments,  revealed  a  small,  pale  face, 
darkly  framed,  a  retroussee  nose,  and  eyes  almost  lustreless  but 
for  a  sympathetic  glimmer  that  passed  across  them  and  lingered 
until  the  match  went  out. 

"Do  you  read  much?"  it  occurred  to  him  to  ask.  He  had 
to  repeat  the  question,  which,  he  had  to  admit  to  himself,  was 
downright  silly.  Still,  he  had  to  make  conversation  somehow. 

"I  used  to  until  the  accident.  And  the  light  where  I  work 
is  bad.  I  can't  read  often  now." 

Her  favourite  author?  She  had  two  or  three.  Dickens,  and 
Elinor  Glyn,  and  Marie  Corelli.  She  didn't  know  which  she 
liked  best. 

He  fumbled  in  the  grass  and  found  a  small,  cold  horny  hand. 
It  made  no  effort  to  withdraw,  but  lay  docile  in  his  large,  warm, 
soft  one.  He  pressed  the  tips  of  her  fingers,  until  they  grew 
warmer;  they  responded  but  slightly  with  virginal  timidity,  and 
beneath  this  reticence  he  felt  an  ardency  all  the  more  expressive 
for  its  hesitancy.  Presently  he  realised  something  uncomfort- 
able, an  involuntary  shiver  passed  down  his  back.  "My  God!" 
he  exclaimed  inwardly,  and  to  hide  his  confusion  mumbled 
something  about  having  another  cigarette. 

She  asked  if  she  might  light  a  match  for  him.  By  its  glow 
he  saw  her  face  again.  It  was  smiling,  benign,  child-like, 
barely  suggestive  of  a  quiet,  inner  happiness,  and  for  the 
moment  it  made  him  nearly  forget  the  discovery  that  had  so 
startled  him.  He  had  noted  this  look  before  hi  the  faces  of 
docile  women  in  public  houses  as  they  filled  their  men's  pipes 
for  them. 

He  maneuvred  over  to  the  girl's  other  side,  and  grasped 
her  other  hand.  Thank  God,  this  one  had  five  fingers!  He 
found  himself  backward  with  this  timid  girl,  and  he  held  her 


BABEL 

hand  with  the  bashfulness  of  a  boy.  But  he  got  touch  for 
touch,  pressure  for  pressure,  each  slight  but  pathetically  tender. 

"Shall  I  give  you  another  light?"  she  asked,  having  noticed 
that  his  cigarette  had  gone  out.  She  removed  her  hand  from 
his  and  struck  a  match.  His  head,  stretching  forward  to 
receive  the  light,  was  now  almost  upon  her  shoulder,  and  he 
let  it  sink  there.  And  even  as  she  held  the  light  he  had  time 
to  observe  something.  She  was  smiling,  and  her  mouth, 
slightly  open,  revealed  instead  of  teeth  a  black  gash. 

Well,  this  was  an  adventure!  He  knew  the  keen  pleasure 
he  was  giving  her,  so  he  tried  not  to  think  of  her  deafness,  her 
thumbless  hand,  her  mutilated  mouth.  All  of  her  seemed  to  be 
maimed  but  her  heart.  She  stroked  his  hair  lightly,  almost 
reluctantly,  as  if  afraid  of  his  head  being  suddenly  snatched 
from  her.  And  he  tried  not  to  think  of  her  appearance,  of  her 
sordid  story,  which  he  extracted  bit  by  bit,  a  common  enough 
narrative,  in  its  way,  of  the  jungle  of  machines  and  machine- 
made  people — and  this  life  had  not  embittered  her!  He  let 
his  imagination  dwell  upon  the  dark,  the  grand  dark,  the 
blessed  dark,  which  hid  the  ugliness  of  the  world.  He 
remembered  nights,  and  moments  in  nights  .  .  .  but  that  was 
so  long  ago!  And  now  again  the  dark,  which  swallowed  him 
and  this  poor  girl.  Beggars  they  were,  both  of  them,  also 
prince  and  princess.  .  .  . 

"Do  you  like  the  dark?"  he  asked  suddenly. 

"Sometimes,"  she  replied  gravely. 

"To-night?"  he  persisted. 

"To-night!"  she  echoed. 

They  stopped  while  he  listened  to  the  bagpipes,  which  made 
themselves  audible  from  the  direction  of  Parliament  Hill.  A 
party  of  revellers  passed  by  laughing.  The  clock  struck  eleven. 
132 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

"It's  time  to  be  going,"  she  said.  "The  folks  will  be 
wondering." 

She  rearranged  her  hair,  then  rose  and  shook  herself.  This 
was  his  first  opportunity  for  observing  that  her  figure  was 
short,  unpleasantly  short. 

"Thanks  for  the  nice  evening.    Good  night!"  she  said. 

"Good  night,"  he  said  simply. 

He  did  not  offer  to  accompany  her,  and  still  eyeing  her  figure, 
he  almost  incredulously  observed  that  she  moved  away  limping! 
Poor  girl!  a  perfect  product,  a  symbol,  of  our  machine-maimed 
age! 

"Well,  111  be  blowed!"  he  muttered  to  himself,  as  the  irony 
of  it  struck  him.  He  lay  back  in  the  grass,  grinned  into  the 
dark,  and  thought  himself  a  philanthropist. 

SOHO 

There  was  another  evening,  in  the  early  October.  Gombarov 
went  to  the  Palace  Theatre.  The  evening  was  crisp  and  clear 
when  he  entered,  but  on  making  his  exit  before  the  final  two 
numbers  he  found  himself  in  the  thick  of  his  first  London 
fog,  a  dense  grey-purple  haze  shot  through  with  shafts  of 
light  from  the  gas  and  electric  lamps. 

The  crowd  in  Shaftesbury  Avenue  moved  in  fantastic  proces- 
sion, a  blurred,  conglomerate  mass,  as  indeterminate  as  chaos, 
and  looked  at  from  the  opposite  side  of  the  street  it  presented 
nothing  more  than  a  motionful  darkness,  above  which,  hi  the 
phosphorescent  haze  of  muffled  artificial  light,  there  loomed,  in 
half-defined  silhouette,  a  leisurely  feather,  an  accompanying 
topper,  a  scurrying  bowler,  and  again  a  feather,  a  topper  and 
a  bowler;  and  everywhere  were  to  be  seen  the  moving,  lighted 
points  of  cigarettes  or  cigars,  worlds  of  a  cosmos,  and  the 
occasional  flare  of  a  match,  suddenly  lit  and  curvingly  flung 
133 


BABEL 

into  the  street  with  meteor-like  precipitancy.  But  when 
Gombarov  looked  at  the  moving  crowd  on  his  own  side  of  the 
street,  he  still  failed  to  define  dearly  the  individual  features. 
Only  smiles  and  scowls,  disembodied  and  intense,  hovered  above 
white  shirt  fronts  or  half-bared  bosoms  framed  in  fur.  Was 
she  not  attractive,  that  sad-gay  street  sylph,  whose  palpable 
smile  danced  over  her  unseen  features  on  a  ground  of  pallor, 
in  which  two  points,  glittering,  drew  you,  invited  you  in,  to  a 
revelation  of  mystery,  joy,  disillusionment? 

The  'buses  and  taxis  sped  by,  rumbling,  muffled  all  but  in 
sound,  thunderously,  thunderously  dinning,  because  the  ears 
functioned  for  half-blinded  eyes.  A  laugh  burst  forth,  shrill 
and  hysterical,  a  woman's,  come  as  from  the  depths  of  a  womb, 
and  for  a  while  the  fog  appeared  to  vibrate  with  this  gestating 
laughter.  Gombarov  turned  to  observe  a  drunken  sailor  reeling, 
one  arm  around  a  woman's  waist,  his  fingers  playing  with  the 
woman's  breasts.  Again  she  laughed  her  devastating  laugh, 
that  with  shrill  echoes  diffused  itself  in  the  fog.  Then  came 
a  running  cry,  approaching  nearer;  it  was  a  newsboy's  cry, 
loud  and  raucous  and  unintelligible,  and  it  violated  the  thick 
air  with  its  desperate  insistence.  After  that  he  caught  the 
fragment  of  a  conversation: 

"Yes,  really,"  a  voice,  the  sort  one  associates  with  the  Public 
Schools,  was  saying,  "Bergson  is  the  prophet  of  the  age.  You 
see,  old  chap,  it's  all  a  matter  of  flux,  the  great  life  urge.  You 
ought  to  read  him.  It's  like  this.  ..." 

Gombarov  turned  to  get  a  glimpse  of  the  man  who  spoke, 
and  caught  what  was  obviously  an  artist's  silhouette,  with  all 
the  customary  trappings,  the  large  felt  hat,  long  hair  and  a 
flowing  tie.  And  again  he  caught  the  fragment  of  a  conver- 
sation in  a  voice  the  very  soul  of  maudlin  good  nature: 

"And  so  I  says  to  'im,  says  I,  'Don't  do  it,  Jack,  for  the  love 
134 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

o'  Gord'  ...  An'  'e  says  to  me,  says  'e,  'I  must  marry  the 
girl.  It's  not  me  that'll  be  leavin'  a  girl  in  the  lurch  after  me 
doin'  the  dirty  on  'er,  and  she  a  good  pal  and  stickin'  to  me 
like  a  mustard  plaster!'  Well,  what  could  I  say  to  'im  after 
that?  Come,  Tom,  let's  turn  into  the  Bird-in-'and  and  Ve 
a  mouthful.  ..." 

"Mouthful,  did  you  say,  Dick?"  said  his  companion.  "Ain't 
a  pint  enough  for  you?" 

Gombarov  smiled,  and  was  about  to  follow  them  into  the 
Bird-in-Hand,  when  a  beshawled,  half-bowed  woman's  figure, 
with  a  man's  cap  on,  accosted  him  from  the  neighbouring 
doorway: 

"Gentleman,  do  'ave  a  sprig  of  white  'eather,  and  'elp  a 
poor  widow  with  six  little  ones.  'Ave  a  sprig,  gentleman.  It'll 
bring  you  good  luck.  Six  little  ones,  gentleman,  and  not  one 
o'  them  that's  big  enough  to  work.  You'll  be  'elping  a  widow, 
gentleman.  Let  me  stick  a  sprig  in  your  button'ole." 

And  seizing  the  lapel  of  his  coat,  she  had  the  sprig  of  heather 
in  before  he  could  say  a  word.  He  dropped  a  six-pence  into 
her  hand. 

"Thank  you,  kind  gentleman.  Bless  you,  kind  gentleman. 
Good  luck  to  you,  kind  gentleman!" 

About  to  walk  away,  he  heard  her  accost  a  joy-lady: 

"A  spring  of  heather  for  you,  dearie.  For  good  luck,  dearie. 
Sure  to  bring  you  a  rich  sweetheart,  dearie!  .  .  .  Thank  you, 
angel-face!  Bless  you,  my  pretty.  Sweet  dreams  to  you,  and 
a  purse  of  sovereigns,  dearie!" 

Gombarov  paused  on  the  kerb  and  wondered  what  to  do 
next.  Crowds  poured  out  of  theatres  and  cinema  houses  and 
swelled  the  stream  of  chaos  which  sluggishly  surged  past  him. 
Strange  blurred  objects  detached  themselves  from  the  moving 
darkness,  and  darted  across  the  way  or  into  side  channels. 

135 


BABEL 

Something  ponderous,  on  wheels,  rolled  by  him,  making  the 
ground  quake,  and  all  that  was  visible  of  it,  in  large  characters 
of  light,  was  the  figure  "14,"  which,  as  it  were,  a  number 
appointed  by  the  mysteries,  unattached  and  unsupported, 
moved  mystically  through  space,  and  speedily  receding  at  last 
disappeared  into  the  dark. 

Gombarov  turned  into  Dean  Street  and  walked  the  small 
narrow  lanes  of  Soho,  often  pausing  to  look  into  the  windows 
and  doorways  of  tiny  foreign  restaurants,  cafes  and  public 
houses,  which  were  as  toy  havens  and  oases  of  light  in  a 
suspended  black  cloud  drifting  under  the  heavens. 

Thus  he  walked  on,  passing  lamp-post  after  lamp-post,  shadow 
after  shadow,  silhouette  after  silhouette,  until  he  came  to  the 
to-be-remembered  lamp-post  and,  under  it,  ran  into  a  to-be- 
remembered  shadow  and  more  than  a  shadow,  a  thing  soft 
and  of  a  plumpness  and  surely  of  a  radiant,  if  for  the  moment 
fog-enveloped  presence,  overwhelmingly  pleasant  in  the  sudden 
contact.  In  short,  it  was  a  smiling  girl,  and  at  once  it  was 
to  be  seen,  and  certainly  to  be  felt,  that  here  was  no  ordinary 
girl,  and  no  ordinary  smile.  In  the  impact  they  came  together 
as  in  an  embrace,  and  in  their  astonishment,  for  some  moments 
stood  immovable,  face  breathing  into  face,  breast  to  breast, 
limbs  to  limbs,  touching.  She  was  panting  from  the  collision, 
which  had  been  a  hard  one,  and  together  with  her  breath  a 
delicious  aroma  poured  into  his  nostrils  from  her  neck  and 
shoulders. 

She  was  the  first  to  disentangle  herself,  laughing.  "I  am 
sorry,"  she  said  in  English,  with  a  foreign  accent,  and  was 
about  to  pass  on. 

"Well,  I  am  not  a  bit  sorry,"  he  retorted.  "On  the  contrary. 
It  isn't  often  that  one  is  so  lucky  as  to  strike  an  Isola  Bella. 
136 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

...  I  don't  mean  the  restaurant  over  there,"  he  added,  for 
they  were  standing  close  to  the  restaurant  of  that  name. 

"Well,  you  are  clever  to  have  thought  of  that,"  she  said, 
with  a  good-natured  laugh.  "But  I  wonder  what  you  would 
have  said  if  we  had  stood  by  the  Hercules  Pillars  or  the  Duck 
and  Drakes  or  the  Dirty  Dick!" 

They  stood  there  laughing,  and  after  an  embarrassing  pause 
he  felt  it  incumbent  upon  him  to  speak,  lest  she  depart  and 
leave  him  to  his  own  devices. 

"It's  my  first  fog,"  he  began.  "I've  been  walking  about  in 
it  rather  lonely,  until  I  bumped  into  you.  .  .  .  What  do  you 
say  to  a  coffee  with  me,  or  something  stronger,  if  you  like?" 

The  girl  gave  him  a  close  scrutiny  under  the  lamp-post,  and 
said  impulsively: 

"I'm  afraid  I  haven't  got  time  to  stop,  but  if  you  like  to 
come  along  with  me  I  don't  mind!" 

"Thanks.    Righto!" 

"So  this  is  your  first  fog?"  she  said,  as  they  walked  on,  side 
by  side.  "Well!  I've  been  in  London  seven  years,  and  I've 
been  in  many  fogs,  but  this  is  the  first  time  that  anything  like 
this  has  happened  to  me.  You  are  an  artist,  aren't  you?" 

"I  write." 

"I  thought  so.  I  should  think  you  were  one  of  those  persons 
to  whom  strange  things  always  happen." 

"Strange  that  you  should  know  it." 

"Oh,  I  felt  that  about  you  at  once.  If  I  hadn't,  I  shouldn't 
have  stopped  to  talk  to  you.  I  have  curious  intuitions.  But 
here  we  are!"  She  stopped  before  an  apartment  house  in  a 
narrow  lane,  and  drew  the  keys  out  of  her  bag,  while  he  stood 
hesitant.  "You  can  come  in,  if  you  like,"  she  said,  "but  mind 
you,  only  as  a  friend." 

They  walked  up  three  flights,  then  pausing  before  Number 
137 


BABEL 

15,  she  unlocked  the  door,  and  on  entering,  turned  up  the 
electric  light.  Gombarov  followed  her  in. 

"Do  take  the  big  chair,"  she  said. 

She  subjected  him  to  a  quiet  scrutiny  while  taking  her  gloves 
off. 

"I  shouldn't  have  thought,"  she  observed  at  last,  "that  you 
had  grey-blue  eyes  with  that  black  hair  of  yours.  It  isn't 
usual.  And  you've  got  a  long  head.  Something  in  it,  I  dare 
say.  Strange,  but  you  are  both  cautious  and  impulsive,  always 
at  war  with  yourself.  You  don't  know  your  own  power.  Your 
mind  is  free,  but  you  body  is  tied.  You  are  introspective.  You 
torment  yourself,  inclined  too  much  to  worry,  often  needlessly. 
It  is  as  if  you  were  lost  in  the  woods,  trying  to  find  your  way 
out.  .  .  .  What  will  you  have  to  drink?  Would  you  rather 
have  wine,  or  spirits,  or  beer?" 

Astonished  at  her  extraordinary  divination  of  his  character, 
he  mumbled  in  an  embarrassed  way: 

"I  don't  mind  what  I  have." 

"Come  in  and  choose,"  and  she  opened  the  door  of  the  next 
room.  He  followed  her  in. 

"You've  given  me  something  of  a  job,"  he  said,  laughing,  as 
he  surveyed  the  bountiful  shelves  and  the  rows  of  variously 
shaped  bottles  with  their  variously  coloured  contents  and  the 
open  boxes  on  the  floor  containing  yet  other  bottles. 

Beaune  and  Fraisa  and  Chianti  and  Graves  were  here,  and 
Chablis  and  Pommard  and  Chateau  Le  Rose  and  Chambertin 
and  French  and  Italian  Vermuth,  and  Australian  and  Califor- 
nian  burgundy,  and  tawny  port,  and  cherry  brandy,  and 
Hennessey  and  Martell  Three  Star,  and  Chartreuse  and  Creme 
de  Menthe  and  Benedictine,  as  well  as  the  Italian  Strega  and 
Russian  Kummel;  whiskey  and  gin,  and  Guinness  and  Bass 
and  lager,  it  goes  without  saying. 

138 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

"But  the  most  precious  bottle  here  one  may  not  touch,"  he 
said  with  an  air  of  audacious  gallantry. 

"No!"  she  laughed,  "but  you  can  choose  any  other."  She 
obviously  enjoyed  his  bewilderment. 

He  thought  for  a  while,  and  an  inspiration  came  to  him. 
"Ill  have  a  drop  of  vodka,"  he  said. 

"You  thought  you'd  catch  me  napping,"  she  laughed,  as 
from  a  hidden  corner  she  drew  out  a  dust-covered  bottle  and 
held  it  up  against  the  light.  "Instead,  you've  given  yourself 
away.  You  are  a  Russian,  aren't  you?" 

"I  was  bora  in  Russia.    And  you?" 

"I  am  from  Brussels." 

"You  speak  such  good  English." 

"So  everyone  says.  What  will  you  have  after  this?"  she 
asked  as  they  entered  the  next  room  and  she  poured  him  out  a 
liqueur  glass  of  vodka.  "What  do  you  say  to  Pommard?" 

On  his  giving  a  sign  of  assent,  she  brought  in  a  bottle  and 
putting  it  between  her  knees  very  adroitly  drew  the  cork, 
while  he  watched  the  graceful  curves  of  her  in  the  action.  He 
noticed  she  had  neat  ankles  and  that  when  she  walked  there 
was  a  fluidity  in  the  lines  of  her  slender  form.  Her  pale, 
somewhat  dark-tinted  face,  with  its  awake  brown  eyes  and 
nearly  regular  features,  and  her  jet  black  hair,  done  into  a 
Grecian  knot,  had  distinction.  No  sooner  had  she  poured  out 
two  glasses  of  wine  than  there  was  a  knock. 

"Oh,  it's  my  violin  instructor!"  she  said  apologetically. 
"It'll  only  take  about  twenty  minutes.  You  can  amuse  yourself 
by  looking  at  the  books." 

She  opened  the  door,  and  in  came  a  stout  man,  unmistakably 
a  German,  with  a  violin  case  under  his  arm.  He  greeted  her 
in  a  thick  if  good-natured  English,  and  after  she  had  introduced 
Gombarov  as  a  "friend,"  she  asked  the  new  visitor: 

139 


BABEL 

"What  wffl  you  have?" 

"The  same  as  usual,  if  it's  handy." 

She  fetched  a  bottle  of  Guinness  from  the  next  room  and 
handed  it  to  the  German,  who  soon  opened  it  and  slowly 
filled  a  large  glass  with  its  rich  froth,  which  clung  to  his 
moustache  long  after  the  first  gulp.  The  girl  brought  her 
violin  from  a  cupboard  and  resting  it  tenderly  on  her  shoulder 
began  to  play,  while  the  German  corrected  her  between  gulps 
of  Guinness. 

Gombarov,  in  the  meantime,  reclining  in  the  big  chair,  sipped 
his  wine,  and  furtively  watched  his  strange  hostess  and  the 
graceful  movements  of  her  bared  arms.  He  pretended  to  be 
interested  hi  the  books  which  lay  upon  the  table.  Among 
these  were  Flaubert's  Salammbo  in  French,  Tolstoy's  Cossacks 
and  Dostoyevsky's  Crime  and  Punishment  in  German,  odd 
volumes  of  Shaw's  Plays  and  Conrad's  Under  Western  Eyes. 

"An  extraordinary  girl!"  thought  Gombarov. 

After  the  lesson,  the  German  helped  himself  to  another 
Guinness,  and  having  exchanged  a  few  banal  remarks,  said 
good-night,  and  left.  Gombarov's  hostess  sat  down  to  her 
wine,  and  began  to  tell  something  about  herself.  Her  name 
was  Lina  Linter  and  she  was  a  waitress  by  profession.  She 
had  no  need  to  be  that  if  she  were  willing  to  sacrifice  her 
independence  by  accepting  the  proffered  assistance  of  influential 
friends  or  by  marrying  one  of  her  several  admirers.  She  liked 
men  the  same  as  women,  as  friends,  as  good  pals,  but  that 
always  led  to  misunderstandings.  Why  couldn't  men  ever 
forget  that  they  were  males?  She  loved  books  and  music,  and 
had  she  her  life  to  live  over  again  she  would  have  been  a 
dancer.  It  was  her  ambition  to.  ...  Then,  suddenly,  she 
stopped  speaking,  and  sat  up  rigidly  against  the  back  of  the 
tall  arm-chair,  with  shut  eyes  in  a  drawn  face. 
140 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

Gombarov  sprang  forward  and  bent  over  her.  "Are  you  ill? 
Do  you  want  some  water?" 

Her  eyes  still  closed,  her  hand  imperiously  motioned  him 
back  to  his  seat.  He  sat  down  and  waited.  His  heart  thumped 
violently.  He  waited. 

At  last  he  saw  her  lips  move  faintly,  but  her  other  features 
did  not  relax.  She  spoke  in  an  even,  unrippled  voice.  It  was 
as  if  a  dead  mask  and  not  a  living  person  were  speaking. 

"I  see  a  tall  man  standing  by  your  side,"  said  the  voice.  "A 
fine  looking  man  with  strong  features.  He  is  dressed  in  Eastern 
garb,  a  long  embroidered  garment  that  reaches  to  the  ground, 
and  around  his  waist  is  a  golden  girdle  with  long  tassels.  His 
head  is  wrapt  in  a  golden-white  turban.  He  might  be  either 
an  Arab  or  a  Jew.  He  stands  beside  you  with  a  friendly 
smile,  and  one  hand  is  on  your  shoulder.  He  speaks  to  you. 
He  says  ..." 

There  was  a  pause,  and  one  of  her  ears  seemed  intent  on 
catching  words  mysteriously  spoken. 

"...  He  says  .  .  .  'Do  not  be  afraid,  I  am  with  you,  I 
shall  not  forsake  you.  Be  strong,  whatever  happens  be  strong. 
You  have  yet  much  to  go  through.  Your  day  is  coming  .  .  . 
you  shall  speak.  But  the  day  is  not  yet  .  .  .  not  yet'  ..." 

Again  she  paused,  again  her  otherwise  still  face  was  poised 
in  a  listening  attitude,  but  a  strained  look  began  to  creep  into  it. 

"He  says.  .  . "  she  resumed,  "he  says  ...  his  lips  are 
moving  ...  he  has  something  more  to  say  to  you.  ...  I  am 
trying  to  catch  his  words  ...  if  I  could  only  catch  his  words. 
...  He  says  .  .  .  'Keep  your  soul  whole  in  the  midst  of  a 
falling  world.  .  .  .'  He  says  ...  I  am  trying  to  get  what 
he  says.  .  .  .  Things,  other  spirits,  are  coming  between  me 
and  him.  ...  I  cannot  hear  what  he  says.  .  .  .  Dark  spirits 
are  moving  between  me  and  him.  .  .  .  He  is  gone.  I  can  only 
141 


BABEL 

see  his  golden-white  turban  moving  away  in  the  darkness  .  .  . 
and  there  is  a  golden  light  playing  on  the  turban.  Now  it  is 
gone,  gone  ..." 

There  was  a  long  pause,  while  she  still  kept  her  face  rigid 
and  her  eyes  shut.  Gombarov,  too,  sat  immovable  in  his  chair, 
overcome  by  the  extraordinary  revelation,  the  strangeness  of 
his  adventure.  And  expectantly  he  waited,  afraid  to  utter  a 
word,  lest  he  break  the  spell  and  hinder  the  oracle. 

"He  is  gone  ..."  she  resumed,  "he  hasn't  come  back. 
Other  spirits  have  crowded  in  between  me  and  him,  preventing 
communication.  He  is  evidently  your  protective  destiny.  And 
as  you  have  him,  so  you  have  nothing  to  fear.  But  let  me 
see  ...  let  me  see  ...  let  me  look  into  your  past  .  .  .  you 
have  had  a  sad  past.  .  .  ." 

And  again  she  was  silent.  Then:  "I  see  a  little  boy.  He  is 
running  about  in  a  forest  in  some  faraway  country.  There  is  a 
large  white  house  standing  all  by  itself  in  a  garden  on  the 
edge  of  the  forest.  The  little  boy  is  running  along  a  path 
towards  the  white  house.  Now  he  ascends  the  verandah,  now 
he  enters  the  house,  which  is  full  of  people,  but  there  is  no 
one  to  pay  any  attention  to  the  little  boy.  No  one,  though  the 
house  is  full  of  people.  ...  He  is  very  sad,  the  little  boy. 
He  is  looking  for  his  parents  ...  he  doesn't  know  that  he  has 
no  parents.  A  strange  child,  without  parentage.  .  .  .  There 
is  a  dark,  strange  man  in  the  house.  He  hovers  like  a  dark 
fate  over  the  house,  and  the  little  boy  is  afraid  of  him.  The 
little  boy  sees  him  and  runs  into  the  woods  again.  He  embraces 
a  slender  tree,  and  weeps  as  though  his  heart  would  break. 
Poor  little  boy,  no  one  to  look  after  him,  no  one  to  be  kind 
to  him.  The  dark  man  moves  through  the  rooms  of  the  house, 
and  leaves  his  shadow  everywhere.  A  quiet  woman  follows 
142 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

him  about.  Where  he  is  there  is  she,  but  she  leaves  no 
shadow.  ..." 

Gombarov  listened  to  this  strange  recital  of  the  story  of  his 
childhood,  and  whole  scenes  of  that  curiously  remote  life  in 
Russian  woods  and  in  that  white  house  rose  up  like  a  clear- 
defined  dream,  and  dream-like  there  moved  in  it  the  figures  of 
the  shadow  man,  his  stepfather,  who  had  wrought  ruin  on 
his  step-children  and  on  his  own  offspring  through  the  prodi- 
gality of  his  genius,  and  of  the  shadowless  woman,  his  mother, 
who  had  submitted  to  the  will  of  this  man.  And  at  the  intense 
clairvoyance  of  the  sharp  images  his  heart  flamed  with  sadness, 
and  his  teeth  were  set  to  keep  back  the  flood  of  tears.  He 
listened  to  that  trance-possessed  voice,  as  it  rose  from  pathos 
to  despair: 

"Now  I  see  flames!  flames!  The  house  is  on  fire.  A  terrible 
night.  The  shadow  man  is  away.  The  shadowless  woman  and 
many  little  ones  seeking  shelter.  .  .  .  Now  it  is  daylight.  The 
dark  strange  man  looking  on  at  the  ruins.  .  .  .  He  says 
nothing.  ...  A  strange  man.  .  .  . 

"Now  I  see  the  woman  again  starting  on  a  long,  long  journey 
with  the  little  ones.  ...  I  am  going  with  them  across  many 
countries.  ...  So  many  trains,  so  many  trains.  .  .  .  Then  a 
large  ship.  ...  I  see  them  in  a  city  with  many  tall  houses.  .  .  . 
What  a  lot  of  people.  .  .  .  Oh,  poor  little  boy,  poor  little 
boyl  .  .  .  There  are  no  trees  in  this  city  of  tall  houses,  no 
place  to  hide  in,  no  place  to  run  away  to  ...  oh,  poor  little 
boy.  .  .  ." 

In  this  curious  fashion  she  went  on  relating  what  he  already 
knew  so  well,  and  he  was  filled  with  wonder  at  the  mystery 
of  her  knowledge.  Did  she  tap  the  well  of  his  unconscious 
thoughts?  He  could  not  forget  some  things  if  he  would,  but 
after  all,  it  was  the  present  and  the  future  that  so  vitally 

'43 


BABEL 

interested  him,  and  he  waited  for  a  glimpse  of  these  with  his 
whole  spirit  in  suspense: 

"...  And  a  heavy  burden  hangs  over  his  soul,  weighs 
him  down  ...  he  wishes  to  forget  ...  to  wipe  out  his  whole 
past  ...  as  if  it  did  not  exist.  ..." 

She  lapsed  into  silence,  while  his  eagerness  grew.  For  it 
had  been  his  chief  thought  since  coming  to  Europe,  how  to 
pluck  the  past  out  of  his  heart  to  make  his  heart  light,  how 
to  fling  the  albatross  from  his  neck  that  he  might  stand  up  a 
straight  man!  Men  sensed  its  presence  and  kept  away  from 
him,  women  ran  from  him  as  from  a  dumb  animal  in  pain. 
Simple  to  himself,  he  appeared  incomprehensible  to  others. 
The  silence  of  the  girl  before  him  tortured  him,  and  at  last, 
in  an  imploring  voice,  as  if  she  could  help  him,  he  let  loose  the 
thought  that  was  so  pent  up  in  him: 

"Tell  me,  tell  me  if  you  can,  what  shall  I  do  to  rid  myself 
of  this  burden,  to  forget  it  altogether,  as  if  it  did  not  exist?" 

There  was  in  his  voice  a  concentrated  intensity  as  of  his 
whole  life's  pain.  So  comes  a  first  flash  of  forked  lightning 
after  the  long  suspense  and  enduring  of  a  too  long  repressed 
thunder  cloud.  There  was  again  a  tormenting  silence,  while 
his  temples  throbbed  and  his  eyes  piercingly  sought  to  penetrate 
the  girl's  mask,  as  if  behind  it  reposed  all  the  mysteries  of 
existence,  and  surely  the  mystery  of  his  own.  Again  came  the 
even,  unrippled  voice: 

"You  must  not  try  to  get  rid  of  it.  You  were  chosen  to 
bear  it.  You  are  a  bearer  of  other  people's  burdens,  as  well 
as  your  own.  It  will  grow  yet  greater,  until  it  will  seem  almost 
too  great  to  be  borne.  Then  the  burden  shall  burst  into  flame, 
and  out  of  that  flame  words  will  come.  A  message  for  the 
world  is  being  born  in  pain  like  a  child  in  a  woman's  womb. 
You  must  be  patient,  you  must  endure.  .  .  .  You  will  take 
144 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

long  journeys.  .  .  .  You  will  make  friends.  ...  All  who  are 
in  your  life  now  shall  pass  out  of  it.  ...  Here  he  is  again,  the 
tall  man  with  the  white-golden  turban.  He  speaks  ...  he 
says  .  .  .  'Keep  your  soul  whole  hi  the  midst  of  a  falling 
world'  ...  He  is  gone.  ..." 

She  opened  her  eyes  for  the  first  time  and  wearily  smiled. 
"How  tired  I  am.  ...  I  am  mediumistic.  .  .  .  Moments  come 
when  I  am  commanded  to  speak  to  persons  I  am  with.  I  hope 
I  have  told  you  something  that  you  want  to  know.  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  you  have.  It's  quite  extraordinary.  I  am  most 
grateful  to  you." 

She  refilled  their  glasses.  The  colour  began  to  return  to 
her  face.  They  drank  and  talked  of  the  mysteries  of  the  world. 
And  again  she  refilled  their  glasses. 

"Would  you  like  to  try  another  wine?"  she  asked  when  the 
bottle  was  finished.  She  went  into  the  wine  room  and  soon 
reappeared  with  a  bottle  of  champagne.  Then  she  fetched 
three  champagne  glasses  and  placed  them  on  the  table.  "I 
have  a  lodger,"  she  explained.  "I  expect  him  in  every  minute. 
It  helps  to  pay  for  the  flat.  He  is  a  waiter  at  the  same  hotel 
as  myself.  He  is  an  interesting,  educated  man  and  could  do 
something  better,  but  like  myself  he  does  what  he  does  by 
choice." 

Gombarov  thought  all  this  incongruous  and  mysterious,  as 
everything  that  had  happened  that  evening,  and  his  own 
presence  there  was  equally  incongruous  and  mysterious.  He 
sipped  the  sparkling  liquid,  and  as  he  had  had  but  a  scant 
dinner,  and  had  been  excited  first  by  the  movement  and  colour 
at  the  theatre,  then  by  the  fog  and  lastly  by  the  strange 
meeting  with  the  girl  and  the  ensuing  revelations,  the 
champagne  began  to  take  effect,  and  his  mind  began  dancing 
like  a  feather  in  ether.  He  felt  sublimely  irresponsible, 
145 


BABEL 

and  drank  more  and  more,  not  caring  what  happened  to  him. 

There  was  a  knock  on  the  door.  Miss  Linter  jumped  up, 
saying: 

"It  is  Max!" 

Max  entered  the  room.  He  was  a  pale-faced  German  or 
Swiss,  with  thin  sensitive  features,  and  but  for  the  stains  on 
his  dress-suit  and  white  shirt-front  he  had  the  look  of  a 
gentleman.  They  were  introduced  to  one  another,  and 
Gombarov  was  relieved  to  see  that  Max  did  not  resent  his 
presence,  but  appeared  to  take  the  whole  matter  for  granted 
as  one  of  Lina's  vagaries.  He  could  not  help  wondering  what 
relations  existed  between  the  two,  and  he  had  observed  that 
there  was  nothing  demonstrative  in  their  greeting.  The  three 
clinked  glasses: 

"Prosit!"  said  Max. 

"A  votre  santel"  said  Lina. 

"Na  zdorovie/"  said  Gombarov,  in  Russian. 

Gombarov  was  looking  at  Max.  Max's  face  was  of  an  intense 
pallor  which  gradually  seemed  to  lose  itself  in  the  light,  while 
his  white  shirt-front  loomed  large,  like  a  starched  wall,  and 
great  was  Gombarov 's  desire  to  write  on  it  in  large  letters,  in 
black  chalk.  His  mind  writhed  on  the  horns  of  a  terrible 
dilemma.  What,  precisely,  could  he  write  on  it?  Yes,  what? 
What?  It  was  tormenting  not  to  know  what  to  write  on  it. 
Even  if  he  knew,  where  was  he  to  get  the  black  chalk?  But 
this  was  a  secondary  matter.  If  he  only  knew  what  to 
write  on  it!  He  racked  his  brains  for  words  even  as  he  listened 
to  the  conversation  of  the  others  as  in  a  kind  of  tense  dream. 
Though  hell  and  heaven  fall,  though  that  strange  box,  that 
lit-up  cubicle,  containing  him  and  Lina  and  Max,  be  hurled 
within  the  next  ten  minutes  through  space,  he  must  know 
what  to  write  on  that  colossal  white  shirt-front  in  large  letters 
146 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

in  black  chalk!  His  mind  suddenly  lightened,  and  he  laughed. 
Why,  of  course!  He  had  the  very  words.  Why  hadn't  he 
thought  of  them  before?  There  was  only  one  kind  of  writing 
possible  on  any  kind  of  wall: 

"MENE,  MENE,  TEKEL,  UPHARSIN!" 

He  spoke  these  words  half-aloud,  of  which  he  was  hardly 
aware.  As  if  penned  by  a  flaming  torch,  the  words  were  being 
graven  on  his  mind  in  grotesque  letters  of  fire,  and  he  repeated, 
this  time  louder: 

"MENE,  MENE,  TEKEL,  UPHARSIN!" 

He  heard  Lina  and  Max  break  into  a  laugh.  As,  in  a  sharp 
flash,  he  realised  its  cause,  he  joined  furiously  in  the  laugh, 
with  his  whole  might  and  body,  like  a  demon  suddenly 
unshackled,  and  in  this  fierce  laughter  the  burden  that  had 
earlier  in  the  evening  troubled  him  was  thrown  off  completely. 

"I  wonder,"  said  Lina,  when  the  mirth  had  subsided,  "what 
made  you  say  those  words?  For  I  had  been  thinking.  Max 
and  I,  you  know,  have  been  foretold  violent  deaths."  And 
without  waiting  for  a  reply,  she  added:  "It  is  strange,  but  one 
meets  so  many  people  nowadays  who  are  doomed  to  violent 
deaths. 

Gombarov  listened  to  her,  even  while  he  listened  to  voices 
in  himself.  His  mind  seemed  broken  up  into  several  compart- 
ments, each  filled  with  a  voice,  and  one  voice  appeared  to  have 
no  connection  with  another.  In  one  compartment  the  newly 
uttered  phrase  stirred: 

"...  many  people  doomed  to  violent  deaths." 

In  another  compartment  there  was  the  thought: 

"What  a  lovely  girl!  What  lovely  lines  to  her  neck  and 
shoulders!  What  lovely  firm  roundnesses  those  small  breasts 
of  hers,  their  points  showing  through  the  soft  material!  What 
a  lovely  mystery  her  whole  body  must  be!" 

147 


BABEL 

Simultaneously,  in  a  third  compartment,  the  thought  per- 
sisted: 

"If  I  could  only  write  on  that  white  shirt-front,  in  large 
letters,  hi  black  chalk:  MENE,  MENE,  TEKEL,  UPHAR- 
SIN!" 

There  were  other,  pettier  thoughts,  stirring  in  yet  other 
compartments.  He  felt  strange:  his  mind  was  intensely  clear 
and  he  held  a  rein  on  each  thought.  He  was  like  a  blindfolded 
chess-player  playing  twenty  simultaneous  games,  each  separate 
board  clearly  outlined  in  his  mental  vision. 

Then,  with  ecstatic  image-defining  clarity,  he  saw  the 
fantastic  absurdity  of  the  whole  thing,  of  this  strange  room, 
and  of  the  strange  three  beings  hi  it,  of  his  strangely  drifting 
into  this  out  of  the  fog.  Was  it  dream,  or  nightmare,  or 
phantasmagoria?  And  again  he  thought  of  this  strange  London, 
incomprehensible  city  of  a  million  compartments,  of  this 
strange  old  London,  which  was  like  a  huge  old  brain,  made  up 
of  millions  of  cells,  impressed  with  millions  of  memories  and 
images,  interspersed  among  tortuous  convolutions  and  over 
throbbing  arteries,  some  dulled  and  deadened,  some  continuing 
their  reflex  life,  some  grown  over  with  multitudinous  cells  such 
as  this,  alive  with  a  strange  stirring  as  of  maggots  in  a  corpse. 
How  many  such  cells  were  there  in  this  human  heap,  how  many 
oases  of  flame  and  light  and  phosphorescent  activity,  how 
many  centres  of  cerebral  combustion,  islands  of  irrepressible 
forces,  daemonic  hi  intensity? 

His  intense  thought  swept  through  him  like  a  hurricane, 
flung  open  the  doors  of  all  the  separate  compartments  of  his 
brain,  until  all  the  outpouring  thoughts  fused  into  a  single 
thought,  became  one  flame,  one  immense  image,  not  unlike  the 
building  of  his  dream  at  Paris,  many-cellular  and  many- 
corridored,  its  foundations  deep  hi  the  earth,  its  top  piercing 
I48 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

the  clouds,  from  top  to  bottom  groaning  and  clamorous,  as 
of  a  habitation  tottering  to  its  doom.  .  .  . 

He  dared  not  sit  any  longer.  He  must  move.  He  must  run. 
He  must  sing.  He  must  shout.  .  .  . 

Next  morning  he  woke  in  his  own  bed.  His  head  ached.  He 
rubbed  his  eyes,  and  wondered  what  had  happened  to  him. 
He  lay  very  quietly  and  thought.  He  did  not  move,  though 
he  heard  the  door  of  his  room  open,  then  footsteps  approaching. 
He  saw  Julius  Strogovsky  gravely  standing  over  him,  and  his 
dead  eyes  were  looking  up  into  his  friend's  without  the 
slightest  tremor. 

Julius,  who  years  ago  had  been  intimate  with  him  in 
Philadelphia,  had  lately  arrived  from  Germany,  and  had 
induced  him  to  remove  from  Mrs.  TufnelPs  at  Elephant  and 
Castle  into  this  more  ostentatious  boarding-residence  in  Princes 
Square. 

"I  am  afraid  you  are  too  late  for  breakfast,"  said  Julius. 
"I  tried  to  wake  you,  but  you  slept  like  the  dead.  Even  the 
alarm  clock,  which  I  put  to  your  ear,  failed  to  do  the  trick. 
What  were  you  up  to  last  night,  my  boy?  Give  an  account 
of  yourself." 

Gombarov  did  not  reply  at  once.  He  kept  on  looking  fixedly 
at  the  morose  if  kindly  face  of  his  friend,  then  said: 

"I  think  I  must  have  had  a  dream  ...  a  strange,  terrible 
dream." 

"You  may  have  had  a  dream,"  said  Julius.  "I  know  nothing 
about  that.  But  it  doesn't  explain  your  coming  in  at  three  in 
the  morning.  I  couldn't  sleep  again  last  night,  and  I  heard 
you." 

"Then  it  was  not  a  dream,"  replied  Gombarov.  "Certainly, 
a  dream  could  not  have  been  stranger.  Perhaps  I  had  better 
149 


BABEL 

call  it  a  nightmare."    And  he  relapsed  into  silence,  while  his 
mind  tried  to  disentangle  the  events  of  the  evening. 

"I'll  get  the  maid  to  bring  you  a  cup  of  tea,  and  you  will 
feel  more  fit  to  tell  me  about  it,"  suggested  Julius,  who  then 
went  into  the  corridor  and  called  Lily,  a  pretty  Yorkshire  girl, 
new  in  domestic  service. 

Lily  came  in  and  gave  a  knowing  wink  at  Gombarov,  as  if 
to  say,  "I  know  all  about  it.  Boys  will  be  boys!"  She  soon 
returned  with  a  cup  of  tea  and  two  slices  of  bread  and  butter. 

And  Gombarov  narrated  to  his  friend  everything  that  he 
remembered  of  his  evening,  and  concluded: 

"I  do  not  exactly  remember  how  I  left  and  how  I  got  home. 
But  I  have  a  vague  sort  of  recollection  of  stopping  in  Bayswater 
Road  to  look  at  seven  poor  old  wretches,  men  and  women, 
huddled  together  on  a  form  under  the  trees.  It  was  bitterly 
cold,  and  they  leant  against  one  another  at  an  angle.  That 
angle  has  somehow  eaten  itself  into  my  consciousness.  I 
remember  I  thought  of  Maeterlinck's  The  Blind.  And  I  also 
remember  looking  at  that  great  row  of  palatial  houses  across 
the  street,  and  imagining  the  interior  of  one  of  the  bedrooms 
...  a  lovely  woman  lying  in  the  arms  of  a  man  in  a  comfort- 
able warm  bed,  her  nice  soft  expensive  things  over  the  arm  of 
a  chair.  One  thing  has  dropped  to  the  floor.  It's  a  camisole. 
I  don't  know  why,  precisely,  I  thought  of  a  camisole.  But 
there  it  is,  I  thought  of  a  camisole.  And  I  thought,  the  cost  of 
that  fine  silken  camisole,  with  its  embroidery,  would  have  fed 
those  poor  seven  wretches  for  three  days,  perhaps  for  a  week. 
...  I  remember  giving  them  all  the  loose  change  I  had  about 
me.  .  .  .  It's  strange,  but  the  first  word  I  thought  of  this 
morning  was  camisole.  .  .  ." 

"What,  in  heaven's  name,  is  a  camisole?"  asked  Julius, 
breaking  out  into  his  characteristic  chortles. 
ISO 


THE  SOUL  OF  LONDON 

"I'll  show  you  one  in  a  shop-window  in  Oxford  Street," 
replied  Gombarov,  "and  incidentally,  a  sample  of  British 
reserve.  There  is  not  a  secret  of  woman's  dress  that  is  not 
exposed  there." 

"You  are  a  funny  mixture  of  seriousness  and  flippancy," 
observed  Julius.  "But  strange  things  do  happen  to  you,"  he 
added,  not  without  a  touch  of  envy.  "Of  course,  you  intend 
looking  up  this  Linter  girl  again.  You  might  give  me  an 
introduction." 

"I  think  I  can  find  her  place  again,"  said  Gombarov, 
reflectively.  "But  I  wouldn't  swear  to  it.  You  see,  I  arrived 
there  in  one  kind  of  fog,  and  I  left  in  another  kind." 

That  very  afternoon  he  went  to  Soho.  He  had  no  trouble 
in  finding  the  remembered  lamp-post,  which  was  close  to  the 
remembered  restaurant,  the  Isola  Bella.  He  then  followed  the 
route  he  and  Lina  had  taken,  noting  a  landmark  here  and  a 
landmark  there,  which  he  thought  they  had  passed  on  the  way 
to  the  flat.  And  he  came  to  a  lane,  which  he  thought  was  the 
lane,  and  he  came  to  a  house  which  he  thought  was  the  house, 
and  he  ascended  the  stairs  and  came  to  a  flat  which  he  thought 
was  the  flat.  He  rang  and  knocked,  and  expectantly  waited. 
A  smiling  young  woman,  dressed  in  a  kimono,  came  to  the 
door,  but  it  was  not  she. 

"Is  Miss  Linter  in?"  he  asked,  falteringly. 

"I  don't  know  any  such  person,"  replied  the  smiling  young 
woman. 

There  was  a  disappointed  look  in  his  face.  She  went  on 
smiling,  as  if  to  say,  "Won't  I  do?" 

"Sorry  to  have  disturbed  you,"  he  said,  and  went  to  look 
for  the  housekeeper. 

"Miss  Lina  Linter?  I  am  sorry,  no  such  person  in  this 
house,"  said  the  janitor. 


BABEL 

Gombarov  scoured  the  streets  of  the  neighbourhood,  without 
success.  "LinaLinter  .  .  .  Lina  Linter,"  he  went  on  repeating. 
"I  am  sure  that's  the  name."  But  he  failed  to  find  her,  and  in 
time  she  passed  out  of  his  mind. 

Little  did  he  then  know  that  in  days  to  come,  nearly  three 
years  hence,  his  startled  eyes  would  read  in  the  columns  of  a 
newspaper  of  the  fate  of  a  certain  "Mrs.  Joseph  Koenig,  alias 
Miss  Lina  Linter  . .  .  shot  in  the  Tower  as  a  German  spy  .  .  ." 
and  that  it  was  not  till  then  that  he  would  recall  again  the 
strange  injunction  of  his  "protective  destiny": 

"Keep  your  soul  whole  in  the  midst  of  a  falling  world! " 


152 


CHAPTER  IV:   LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS, 
GHOSTS 

"Nothing  was  lost.  The  terrible 
past  had  a  way  of  projecting 
itself  into  the  future.  Ghosts 
would  arise  and,  holding  hands, 
dance  round  him  in  a  whirling 
circle" 

ENTER  POSTMAN 

ALL  the  world's  roads  led  to  London.  That  was  natural,  for 
all  the  roads  also  led  away  from  it;  in  particular,  since  Queen 
Elizabeth's  day,  when  English  adventurers  and  pioneers  set 
forth  towards  unknown  lands  and  seas  and  left  behind  them 
trails  and  highways,  still  binding  them  to  their  mother.  After 
three  centuries  this  energy  had  not  wholly  spent  itself,  and 
London  was  its  heart  and  core,  which  grew  and  developed  in 
ratio  to  the  increasing  proportions  of  the  common  body,  called 
Empire. 

Thanks  to  the  accumulations  of  this  splendid  energy,  the 
city  had  become  like  some  vast,  impersonal  sea,  and  he  who 
lived  in  it  might  take  some  pride  in  his  city,  hardly — unless 
he  were  arrogant — in  his  insignificant  self.  The  presence  of  so 
many  human  beings  bred  an  indifference,  each  being  floated 
as  a  particle  upon  a  vast  sea.  As  a  particle,  it  was  insignificant 
against  all  this  vastness;  as  a  living  particle,  it  felt  intensely 
conscious  of  itself  in  all  this  vastness,  even  as  a  bather  in  the 
vast  sea. 

153 


BABEL 

What  of  a  stranger,  an  alien  particle,  plunged  in  all  this 
vastness? 

Against  the  background  of  London  Gombarov  felt  more  and 
more  keenly  his  own  insignificance.  The  mystery  of  London, 
hiding  behind  a  veil  of  indifference,  was  to  him  a  frightening 
thing.  Yet,  strangely  enough,  it  drove  him,  as  a  bather  in  a 
vast  sea,  to  a  thorough  consciousness  of  himself,  to  take  stock 
of  himself,  of  his  movements  and  strokes  in  the  effort  to  keep 
his  body  up,  and  inevitably  to  regard  himself  as  an  independent 
world  floating  in  the  midst  of  a  vastness,  which  might,  at  the 
least  show  of  weakness,  submerge  him.  And  as  one  alone  and 
learning  to  swim,  he  was  horribly  conscious  of  himself,  and 
equally  so  of  the  vast  and  indifferent  world  around  him.  He 
saw  this  world,  felt  this  world ;  this  world,  vast  and  inscrutable 
as  it  was,  infected  him  with  its  impersonal  personality;  under 
its  averted  eyes  he  was  groping,  as  in  a  darkness,  towards  his 
own  individuality. 

But  there  was  one  extraordinary  day  when  Gombarov,  a 
person  of  no  importance,  felt  himself  to  be  something  of  an 
international  character.  It  was  while  he  yet  lived  at  Elephant 
and  Castle  with  the  Tufnells,  and  the  beaming  Mrs.  Tufnell 
came  in  with  a  batch  of  letters  for  Gombarov: 

"Six  for  you,  sir.    I  hope  it's  some  good  news  for  you! " 

He  glanced  rapidly  at  the  half  dozen  envelopes,  and 
exclaimed: 

"This  is  extraordinary  1    From  six  countries,  Mrs.  Tufnell!" 

"Well,  I  never!"  said  Mrs.  Tufnell.  "You  must  be  an 
important  person,  Mr.  Gombarov."  She  took  great  pride  in 
her  lodger. 

It  was  true  that  one  letter  was  from  England.  This,  without 
opening,  he  knew  to  contain  the  rejected  manuscript  of  a  story. 
The  one  from  America  he  also  put  aside  for  later  reading.  It 
154 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

was  from  his  mother,  and  was  sure  to  contain  depressing  news 
of  the  family.  Poor  Gombarovs!  Their  lot  was  a  hard  one. 
They  were  at  the  mercy  of  a  cruel  world.  God  alone  could 
help  them.  Gombarov  spent  many  weary  days  and  nights 
troubling  about  them.  The  third  letter  was  from  Winifred, 
from  Paris. 

"Dearest  one!"  it  began.  ...  It  went  on:  ...  Life  was 
short  .  .  .  they  were  getting  old  ...  she  was  waiting  for  him 
...  all  in  white  ready  for  him  .  .  .  waiting  for  his  knock  .  .  . 
but  he  did  not  come  .  .  .  other  young  men  came,  with  certain 
glances  hi  their  eyes  ...  she  gave  them  cakes  and  tea  ... 
again  and  again  they  came  .  .  .  and  he,  whom  she  loved 
dearly,  was  hi  London.  ...  If  he  only  truly  loved  her,  he 
would  hurry  up  and  earn  some  money,  and  he  would  come  to 
her  ...  who,  all  in  white,  was  ready  for  him.  .  .  .  When  they 
were  married,  couldn't  she  be  called  Madame  Gombarov  instead 
of  just  plain  Mrs.  Gombarov?  After  all,  they  were  in  Europe 
now,  and  it  was  so  much  nicer  to  be  called  Madame  than 
Mrs.  Anyhow,  it  went  well  with  his  foreign  name.  .  .  .  But 
why  wasn't  he  there  instead  of  hi  London  .  .  .  and  why  didn't 
he  earn  enough  money  quickly,  so  he  could  come  and  take 
her,  all  hi  white,  ready  for  him?  .  .  .  Could  he  truly  love  her, 
yet  not  do  that,  and  come?  ...  If  he  truly  loved  her,  he 
would. 

A  letter  like  that  drove  him  to  despair.  How  could  he,  "a 
stranger  in  a  strange  city,"  be  expected  to  earn  enough  money 
from  the  most  precarious  of  all  vocations,  not  so  much  a 
profession  as  a  form  of  vagrancy?  .  .  .  Why  did  she  mention 
those  young  men,  as  if  other  young  men  existed!  There  was 
something  about  it  which,  rightly  or  wrongly,  offended  the  male 
in  him.  This  was  a  feeling  with  him  rather  than  a  reasoned 
conclusion,  and  as  with  most  sensitive,  intuitive  persons,  his 

155 


BABEL 

feelings  had  a  way  of  proving  truer  than  elaborately  reasoned 
hypotheses.  Besides,  he  remembered  how  after  all  the  seeming 
eternity  of  their  love  she  had  once  forsaken  him,  and  now  he 
was  no  longer  sure  of  her.  His  forebodings  clung  to  him,  and 
it  was  not  for  Reason,  that  moral,  irreproachable  goddess,  to 
soothe  away  with  her  too  cool  fingers  the  throbbing  pains  of 
a  passionate  spirit.  "Take  cold  baths!"  say  reasonable  men 
of  little  passion  to  men  of  genius  and  to  lovers,  as  if  cold 
water  could  put  out  inner  fires,  as  if  the  quenching  of  sacred 
flames  was  a  thing  to  be  desired.  But  whether  reasonable 
men  put  up  bathtubs  or  other  barricades  against  their  enemy 
passion,  passion  retaliates  on  the  treacherous,  becomes  an 
enemy  within  the  gates.  "After  all,"  thought  Gombarov, 
"so-called  reasonable  men  haven't  any  passion.  They  fight 
passion  in  other  men,  not  in  themselves."  He  could  not  cool 
his  passion  for  Winifred,  and  it  was  a  flame  turned  upon 
himself,  for  he  was  not  sure  of  her. 

With  a  helpless  gesture  he  threw  aside  this  letter  and  picked 
up  a  fourth.  This  was  from  Holland,  but  he  did  not  recognise 
the  handwriting.  He  tore  open  the  envelope  and  looked  for 
the  signature.  The  letter  was  from  Thomas  Bowles,  a  young 
English  painter  whom  he  had  casually  met  through  Welsh. 
Gombarov  and  Bowles  had  taken  to  each  other  at  once.  He  was 
a  simple,  robust  and  lovable  fellow  of  Gombarov's  own  age,  who 
painted  the  quiet  English  countryside,  and  in  particular, 
English  trees,  with  the  same  passion  with  which  another  might 
paint  human  beings  or  love  a  woman.  He  was  faithful  to  his 
changeless  English  country,  with  its  dear  meadows  and  winding 
lanes.  New  art  movements  interested  him  without  violating 
the  eternal  innocence  of  his  outlook,  and  in  this  he  was  like 
his  trees,  which  enjoyed  standing  still  and  steadfastly  refused 
to  imitate  the  shapes  given  them  by  modern  painters.  His 
I56 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

wife,  whom  he  had  met  at  the  art  school,  had  given  up  painting, 
but  spent  much  time  urging  her  husband  to  steal  something  of 
the  colour  palette  of  the  moderns  if  not  their  grotesquerie  of 
pattern.  Her  mind  was  a  whip  that  tried  to  set  her  husband's 
brain  spinning  like  a  top,  but  he  was  a  tree,  with  the  static 
soul  of  a  tree,  and  his  roots  were  deep  in  the  ground.  There 
was  no  spinning  his  mind  round!  She  passionately  loved  her 
husband,  yet  never  grew  tired  of  enjoining  upon  Gombarov  the 
folly  of  marriage  for  an  artist,  who,  she  thought,  if  he  needed 
a  woman,  had  best  "live  with  one,"  without  the  formality  of 
legal  marriage.  She  considered  women  quite  inferior  beings, 
who  ought  not  to  meddle  in  the  arts,  though  she  herself  showed 
undoubted  talent  in  the  casual  exercise  of  her  art.  Like 
Gombarov,  the  Bowles  couple  despised  Welsh,  whom  they  had 
known  since  their  art  school  days. 

Bowies'  letter  was  dated  from  Amsterdam.  "A  funny  thing 
happened  a  day  or  two  ago,"  wrote  Bowles.  "Madge  and  I 
were  sitting  in  a  cafe  here  and  happened  to  be  talking  about 
you,  when  a  young  American  chap,  who  was  sitting  with  his 
wife  at  the  next  table,  leant  over  towards  me,  and,  excusing 
himself,  asked  whether  the  John  Gombarov  they  heard 
mentioned  was  the  same  Gombarov  they  had  known  in 
Philadelphia.  .  .  .  And  so  we  spent  some  time  talking  about 
you.  Curiously,  his  wife  also  paints.  The  couple's  name  is 
Davis.  I  thought  I  had  better  warn  you,  especially,  as  on  their 
request,  I  gave  them  your  address.  They  started  for  London 
yesterday,  and  may  look  you  up.  I  thought  the  episode  very 
strange.  It  made  the  world  seem  such  a  tiny  place.  ..." 

The  fifth  letter  was  from  Germany,  from  Julius  Strogovsky, 
who,  seven  or  eight  years  before,  had  left  Philadelphia  for 
Berlin  to  study  philosophy. 

"My  dear  John,"  wrote  Julius,  "I  hear  that  you  have  at  last 
157 


BABEL 

broken  the  shackles  which  have  so  long  held  you  in  Phila- 
delphia, and  are  now  in  London.  I  heartily  grasp  your  hand  in 
congratulation.  Yet  freedom,  too,  for  homeless  vagabonds 
such  as  ourselves  is  more  interesting  than  comfortable.  These 
past  several  years  have  been  for  me,  in  a  sense,  years  in 
purgatory,  with  rare  glimpses  into  paradise.  But  this  is  to 
tell  you  that  I  shortly  expect  to  be  in  London,  and  as  I  believe 
you  intend  staying  on  for  some  time,  we  shall,  I  hope,  see 
something  of  one  another,  if  you  do  not  mind  seeing  one  who 
feels  tired  and  sick.  Yours,  with  affectionate  greeting,  Julius." 
Gombarov  lingered  with  Julius'  note  in  his  hand,  and,  his 
eyes  scanning  the  unseen  distances,  an  image  rose  in  his  mind 
of  the  Julius  he  had  known  in  Philadelphia,  tall,  broad- 
shouldered,  pale,  grey-eyed — blonde  and  wide-featured  like  a 
Slav — with  impetuous  ways,  seldom  walking  but  with  a  stride, 
seldom  laughing  but  giving  way  to  a  series  of  pent-up  chuckles, 
above  all  eloquent  when  not  morosely  silent,  and  possessed  of  a 
strong  will  which  outwardly  manifested  itself  like  a  clap  of 
thunder.  In  an  outburst  of  fury  at  the  stupidity  of  his 
University  instructors  in  Philadelphia  he  exclaimed:  "Poverty 
or  no  poverty,  I  am  going  to  Berlin!"  And  to  Berlin  he  went 
on  money  he  had  collected  from  various  friends  and  reluctant 
relatives.  Afterwards  he  wrote  for  more  money;  Gombarov 
was  among  those  to  respond,  in  a  small  way.  One  gathered 
from  what  one  knew  of  Julius  and  from  his  letters  that  between 
momentary  opulences  he  lived  like  a  dog,  that  he  was  heavily 
in  debt  and  that  his  mind  was  as  full  of  philosophy  as  his 
stomach  empty  of  food.  Two  years  of  this  life  in  Berlin  served 
as  a  preparation  fitting  him  as  a  student  in  a  small  university 
town  famous  for  its  philosophical  school,  the  head  of  which 
was  a  world-wide  celebrity.  Gombarov  had  lost  touch  with 
Julius  for  the  last  year  or  two. 

I58 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

Gombarov  felt  something  infinitely  sad  about  this  letter. 
Had  this  fiery,  strong-willed  fellow,  his  junior,  who  years  ago 
had  set  such  an  example,  lost  his  will  and  buoyancy?  What 
chance  had  he,  Gombarov,  older  than  his  friend,  starting  his 
free  life  eight  years  later,  after  his  long  fierce  struggle  to 
support  his  family  and  with  a  physical  and  educational 
preparation  shamelessly  scant  compared  to  Julius's?  Wearily 
he  put  down  the  letter  and  thought  how  good  it  would  be  to 
see  his  friend  again. 

Tremblingly  he  examined  the  sixth  envelope.  It  was  from 
Russia,  postmarked  Astrakhan.  Strange  that  he  should  receive 
this  letter.  Though  he  did  not  know  the  handwriting,  he 
suspected  whom  the  letter  was  from.  Two  months  earlier  he 
had  put  his  London  address  on  his  visiting  card,  and  with  no 
other  message  placed  it  in  an  envelope  and  posted  it  to  an 
old  address  in  St.  Petersburg,  that  of  an  old  relative,  whom 
he  had  never  seen,  being  ignorant  even  of  the  exact  nature  of 
their  relationship.  The  missive  itself,  the  envelope  with  the 
card  in  it,  was  however  intended  for  his  elder  brother,  Feodor, 
and  was  addressed  in  care  of  this  relative  because  that  was  the 
only  address  Gombarov  possessed.  When  he  had  last  seen 
Feodor,  Gombarov  was  four  years  old,  which  is  to  say  that  he 
had  not  seen  him  at  all.  Feodor  was  several  years  older  than 
himself,  and  their  ways  parted  when  their  mother  had  parted 
from  their  father  and  taken  unto  herself  "old  Gombarov"  as 
her  husband.  Feodor  went  with  his  father,  John  with  his 
mother.  John  and  his  two  elder  sisters  were  so  young  when 
this  had  happened,  and  they  knew  so  little  of  their  own  father, 
that  it  required  no  effort  on  their  part  to  slip  into  the  use  of 
the  name  Gombarov,  though  their  own  father's  name  was 
Semenov.  And  there  was  bad  blood  between  Mrs.  Gombarov 
and  her  eldest  son,  Feodor  Semenov. 
159 


BABEL 

Hence,  when  John  Gombarov  sent  so  curious  a  missive  to 
his  brother,  it  was  problematical  whether  it  would  ever  reach 
him,  and  if  it  should,  whether  Feodor  would  deign  to  reply  to  a 
brother  bearing  the  hated  name.  After  all,  twenty-seven  years 
had  elapsed  since  they  had  seen  each  other,  so  there  was  some 
reason  for  Gombarov  trembling  when  he  looked  at  the  postmark 
and  judged  the  letter  to  be  from  his  brother. 

"Strange!"  he  thought,  "but  why  from  Astrakhan,  on  the 
Caspian?" 

For  he  did  not  even  know  his  brother's  profession.  At  last 
he  tore  open  the  envelope,  and  found  three  separate  sheets  of 
paper,  each  written  on  in  a  different  language:  Russian,  German 
and  French.  He  took  up  the  one  in  Russian  and  read: 

"My  beloved  brother!  I  was  delighted  to  get  your  card, 
but  as  you  gave  no  inkling  as  to  what  language,  apart  from 
English  (of  which  I  know  only  a  little),  you  know  best,  you 
have  put  me  to  the  necessity  of  exhibiting  my  linguistic 
attainments.  I  am  sure  you  will  understand  at  least  one  of 
these  languages,  in  which  I  am  writing  to  you. 

"It  is  strange  to  hear  from  you,  and  from  London!  For  I 
have  understood  that  you  were  in  America.  I  too  have  been 
something  of  a  rover.  I  have  studied  engineering  in  Germany 
and  France.  My  home  is  in  Moscow,  where  I  have  a  wife  and 
three  children,  but  I  spend  some  of  my  tune  in  St.  Petersburg. 
I  am  now  at  Astrakhan,  after  a  protracted  tour  down  the 
Volga,  where  I  have  been  inspecting  steam-boats. 

"I  intend  shortly  taking  a  holiday  abroad.  I  shall  visit  Italy, 
Switzerland  and  Germany,  and  wonder  whether  you  could 
manage  to  meet  me  either  at  Bremen  or  Hamburg.  If  you 
cannot,  I  will  try  to  come  up  to  London  and  spend  two  or 
three  days  with  you. 

1 60 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

"You  give  me  no  hint  of  how  you  are,  what  you  are  doing, 
why  you  are  in  England,  and  frankly,  I  am  astonished  that 
you  should  bear  the  name  of  the  horrible  man  who  has  wrecked 
our  home.  Your  father,  now  a  white-haired  old  man  of 
seventy,  his  family  scattered,  is  spending  his  last  lonely  days 
hi  Odessa.  .  .  .  However,  we  shall  talk  things  over  when  we 
meet.  Let  me  hear  of  your  plans,  and  we  can  then  make 
arrangements.  I  enclose  my  address  in  Moscow,  where  I  am 
now  bound. 

"Your  brother,  Feodor." 

"Most  extraordinary!"  exclaimed  Gombarov,  half  aloud,  and 
repeated,  "most  extraordinary!  Most  extraordinary!" 

He  automatically  picked  up  the  long  envelope  containing 
the  rejected  manuscript,  and  opened  it.  It  contained  a  typed 
note  instead  of  the  usual  printed  rejection  form.  As  he  read  it, 
he  burst  into  loud  laughter: 

"Dear  Sir,"  it  ran.  "I  return  herewith  your  admirable 
translation  of  the  Russian  story.  I  do  not  find  that  the 
readers  of  the  Empire  Review  are  much  attracted  by  Russian 
literature,  which  is  usually  of  a  more  disturbing  kind  than 
they  care  to  read.  Yours  faithfully,  Percy  Primrose,  Editor." 

"Well,  I  wonder  what  they  would  say  to  the  story  of  my  own 
life,  if  it  were  written  as  a  novel!"  thought  Gombarov,  his 
eyes  fixed  on  the  morning's  correspondence. 

His  whole  past  life  seemed  to  be  contained  in  this  batch 
of  letters,  and  what  was  furthest  past  appeared  to  come  nearest 
forward,  and  to  strike  with  greatest  force  into  the  future,  like 
a  far  incoming  wave  that  rolled  onward  and  onward,  and 
gathered  itself  up  into  a  final  fierce  curve,  as  at  last  it  struck 
shore.  And  yet  since  coming  to  England,  he  had  been  thinking: 

"If  only  I  could  forget  my  past,  put  it  wholly  behind  me  as 
161 


BABEL 

if  had  never  occurred,  if  only  I  could  rid  myself  of  this 
oppressive  burden,  start  life  anew,  then  how  free  I  should 
feel,  how  I  should  enjoy  life! " 

This  was  before  that  extraordinary  experience  hi  Lina 
Linter's  flat,  when  that  invisible  presence,  purporting  to  be 
the  spirit  of  his  protective  destiny,  enjoined  him  to  wait  and 
endure,  until  his  future  should  bloom  out  of  his  burden  as  a. 
flower  out  of  well-manured  soil. 

But  now,  as  he  reflected  upon  all  these  letters,  his  past  life, 
like  a  flood,  seemed  to  burst  in  upon  him  and  to  overwhelm 
his  frail,  tired  person,  already  worn  by  the  recurring  fierce 
tides  of  life,  which  advanced  and  receded  only  to  return  with 
trebled  fury. 

He  awoke  from  his  reflections  and  moved  by  sudden  excite- 
ment, arising  out  of  the  consciousness  of  dramatic  meetings 
to  come,  thrust  his  letters  into  his  pocket  and  rushed  out  into 
the  street.  Too  much  wrought  up  to  sit  quietly  on  the  top  of  a 
'bus,  he  walked  with  a  fast  stride  all  the  way  in  to  Piccadilly. 

ENTER  ACQUAINTANCE 

He  walked  rapidly  in  Piccadilly  Circus,  as  one  who  has  no 
eyes.  At  one  crossing  he  ran  into  a  couple,  and  stopped  to 
apologise.  "I  beg  your  pardon!"  he  said,  and  was  about  to 
walk  on.  But  he  felt  his  arm  seized  tightly  and  heard  a  voice 
saying: 

"No,  you  don't.  You  can't  escape  us  like  that,  Gombarov! 
And  we  were  just  talking  about  you! " 

Startled  out  of  his  thoughts,  Gombarov  looked  up,  and  saw 
that  he  had  run  into  the  Davis  couple. 

"Well,  well!  Only  this  morning  I've  heard  about  you  in  a 
letter!"  said  Gombarov,  shaking  hands  with  them. 

"Oh,  you  mean  from  Mr.  Bowles!  He  has  told  you  how 
162 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

we  met  through  hearing  them  mention  your  name.  It's  the 
most  uncanny  thing  that's  ever  happened.  And  now,  no  sooner 
do  we  come  into  London — it's  our  first  day  here — than  we  run 
straight  plumb  into  you.  Really,  it's  uncanny.  But  come 
and  have  a  bit  of  lunch  with  us." 

And  they  walked  into  Appenrodt's. 

They  were  mere  acquaintances,  such  as  seldom  notice  one 
another  in  their  own  city,  but  all  but  fall  on  each  other's  necks 
in  a  strange  one.  Points  of  contact  are  discovered  and  exploited 
to  the  full,  a  hitherto  unsuspected  intimacy  creeps  into  the 
conversation,  crumbs  of  personal  gossip  become  mountains  of 
interest. 

"Is  it  true  that  you  are  married?"  Mrs.  Davis  sprang  the 
question,  after  they  had  discussed  everything  and  everybody. 

"No.   Why  do  you  ask?" 

"Why,  when  we  left  Philadelphia  a  month  ago  there  was  a 
rumour  to  that  effect." 

"And,  pray,  to  whom  have  they  married  me?" 

"Winifred  Gwynne." 

"Why,  she  is  in  Paris!  May  I  ask  who  is  responsible  for 
this  interesting  information?" 

"Let's  see.  ...  Oh,  yes!  I  heard  it  from  Miss  Dooley, 
who  had  heard  it  from  Miss  Edgar." 

"That  dough  face!"  said  Gombarov,  spitefully,  raising  a 
laugh. 

"All  the  same,"  put  in  Mr.  Davis,  "everyone  is  talking  about 
it." 

"I  suppose  I  ought  to  feel  flattered,"  observed  Gombarov, 
"for,  at  all  events,  it  shows  that  I  have  not  been  forgotten 
after  a  whole  six  months!  I  dare  say,  they'll  be  having  me 
commit  bigamy  next,  and  making  me  the  father  of  three  sets 
of  twins!" 

163 


BABEL 

In  his  heart  he  felt  incensed  because  the  rumour  was  not 
true,  and  it  appalled  him  to  think  how  small  the  world 
was.  There  was  a  spark  of  pleasure,  too,  that  he  had  not 
been  forgotten,  even  though  there  was  malice  behind  the 
remembrance. 

ENTER  FRIEND 

A  fortnight  later  he  received  a  brief  pencilled  message  on  a 
postcard: 

"Arrived  last  night,  and  feel  weary  and  sick.  Do  be  a  good 
fellow,  and  come  and  see  me  as  soon  as  you  can.  Julius." 

An  address  in  Princes  Square,  Bayswater,  was  given.  Gom- 
barov  swallowed  a  hasty  cup  of  tea,  and  hurried  out  to  find 
his  friend.  It  was  not  a  part  of  London  that  he  was  familiar 
with.  Thus  far  he  had  been  cultivating  those  populous  sections 
that  were  within  the  reach  of  his  purse.  High-sounding  names 
frightened  him,  gave  an  air  of  inaccessibility  to  the  places  that 
bore  them.  He  was  at  home  with  simple  people,  and  in  spite 
of  his  alien  appearance  invariably  gained  the  confidence  of 
all  simple  folk  during  the  first  few  minutes  of  conversation, 
after  which  he  might  count  on  them  to  tell  him  the  stories  of 
their  lives.  They  divined  in  him  something  that  was  quite 
outside  themselves,  yet  with  it  a  sympathy  that  comprehended 
them.  They  were  mostly  like  that  workingman  he  had  once 
met  in  a  public  house,  who  told  him  his  romance,  then 
observed:  "Now,  what  would  ye  have  done  in  my  place?  It 
isn't  as  if  you  were  the  likes  of  me.  One  can  see  as  you  have 
more  in  your  little  finger  than  I've  got  in  my  whole  brain! " 

He  discovered  that  his  best  way  to  Princes  Square  was  to 

go  to  Queen's  Road  by  tube.    He  had  to  change  at  Charing 

Cross  and  at  Tottenham  Court  Road.    There  was  something 

incredibly  diabolic  to  him  about  this  intricate  network  of 

164 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

underground  railways.  It  was  not  that  he  had  not  seen  the 
subways,  tunnels  and  overhead  railways  of  New  York,  but 
whereas  these  ran  up  and  down  almost  as  erectly  and  as 
disconnectedly  as  its  streets,  London's  system,  like  its  streets, 
was  convolutionary,  as  if,  indeed,  the  great  city  were  a  colossal, 
tight-knit  brain,  its  diffused  energy  throbbing  more  or  less 
evenly  over  vast  spaces. 

Gombarov  found  Princes  Square  and  wondered,  as  he  looked 
at  the  large  colonnaded,  ochre-coloured  houses,  whether  Julius 
had  come  into  a  fortune  to  enable  him  to  live  in  one  of  them. 
He  rang  the  bell,  and  was  admitted  by  a  black-frocked,  white- 
pinafored,  white-capped  maid,  who  conducted  him  into  a  large 
deserted  sitting-room,  full  of  large  upholstered  chairs.  He 
sat  down  in  one  of  them  and  picked  up  a  copy  of  Punch  from 
a  table  crowded  with  newspapers.  He  read  the  lines  under 
the  pictures  as  so  many  words  devoid  of  meaning,  for  his  mind 
was  full  of  his  friend.  ...  He  was  picturing  to  himself  how 
he  would  look.  How  slow  he  was  in  putting  in  an  appearance! 
Long  minutes  passed.  .  .  .  Then  the  door  quietly  opened,  and 
in  stepped  the  tall  form  of  Julius,  tired  and  solemn  and 
pale-faced;  though  three  years  younger,  he  looked  as  many 
years  older  than  Gombarov.  His  hair,  which  in  the  old  days 
had  been  long,  was  cropped  short,  like  a  German  student's. 
Deep  lines  marked  the  face  he  had  known  as  absurdly  young. 
There  was  none  of  the  impetuosity  of  manner  that  he  had 
always  associated  with  him.  He  was  not  prepared  for  such 
violent  changes,  and  for  an  instant  there  flitted  across  his 
mind  the  image  of  Rudin  in  that  ineffable  scene  in  which 
Lezhnyov  ran  across  him  for  the  last  time  hi  the  hotel  of  a 
small  Russian  town.  He  was  so  startled  that  he  did  not  move 
at  once.  Julius  came  over  to  him.  Then  he  rose,  and  the  two 
embraced  in  the  Russian  manner,  kissing  each  other. 


BABEL 

"Yes,"  said  Julius,  who  had  guessed  the  cause  of  Gombarov's 
astonishment,  "I  am  Julius,  your  friend  of  old,  and  I  am  not 
what  I  was.  Life  is  not  kinderspiel.  You  can  see  it  has  been 
none  too  gentle  with  me.  But  you — you  look  the  same  as 
when  I  last  saw  you.  That  is  strange,  as  according  to  all 
accounts,  you've  had  a  small  army  to  provide  for,  which  is 
neither  easy  nor  pleasant  when  you  have  a  little  pack  of  your 
own  dreams  to  shoulder  at  the  same  time.  Yet  you  do  not 
seem  changed  at  all.  ...  I  hope  your  mother  is  well.  And, 
by  the  way,  how's  your  stepfather,  the  old  Gombarov?" 

"Oh,  he!  Still  at  it,  immersed  in  the  problems  of  the  world. 
In  particular,  he  is  busy  studying  comparative  cultures,  as 
far  as  I  can  gather,  in  order  to  demonstrate  the  Jews  to  be 
the  centre  of  the  solar  system." 

"Poor  man! "  exclaimed  Julius,  laughing  his  old  characteristic 
chortling  laugh.  "I  am  inclined  to  agree  with  Borne  that 
Judaism  is  not  a  religion  but  a  misfortune.  .  .  .  Frankly,  I  am 
not  attracted  to  it  at  all.  The  study  of  philosophy,  the  exercise 
of  supreme  reason,  makes  all  that  impossible  for  me.  .  .  .  And 
how  is  your  uncle  Baruch?" 

"Oh,  Baruch!  He  has  become  a  mere  chemist's  assistant. 
I  cannot  think  of  him  but  with  pity,  for  I  am  sure  he  is  one  of 
the  world's  great  men  wasted.  .  .  .  Well,  you  remember  how 
inspiringly  he  used  to  talk  on  science  and  philosophy,  keeping 
us  up  till  dawn,  when  you  and  I  and  Leon  used  sometimes  to 
go  out  and  watch  the  sunrise.  Then  for  me,  it  was  back  to 
work  at  the  New  World.  Poor  Baruch!" 

"Yes,  yes,  you  are  altogether  a  sublimely  ridiculous  family, 
and  you  by  no  means  its  least  distinguished  member.  How 
often,  during  my  first  two  years  in  Berlin,  on  days  when  hunger, 
cold  and  despair  were  my  constant  companions,  did  I  think 
with  tenderness  and  affection  of  your  wistful  figure  and  your 
166 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

grey,  sad,  old-world  face,  so  strangely  out  of  place  against  that 
madly  boisterous  background,  and  I  thought  of  your  patience 
and  endurance,  and  I  gathered  courage  from  the  thought  of 
your  courage.  Ah,  my  dear  John,  do  you  know  that  courage  is 
the  supreme  virtue!" 

"I  was  not  aware  of  possessing  courage,"  returned  Gombarov. 
"Indeed,  I  always  thought  myself  a  great  coward  for  not 
kicking  over  the  traces  earlier.  Now  it  may  be  too  late.  .  .  . 
I  am  thirty-one.  I  have  stuck  so  long  in  one  place.  I  have 
had  no  schooling,  and  feel  myself  supremely  ignorant.  But 
you,  with  your  years  at  philosophy,  your  life  and  experience 
abroad,  you  must  consider  me  a  child.  Like  a  child,  I  have 
often  envied  you  .  .  .  yes,  envied  you  .  .  .  and  hated  myself." 

"Yes,  my  friend,"  proceeded  Julius,  in  his  soft  melodious 
voice,  "you  are  a  mere  child  when  I  think  of  the  worlds  of 
Reason  that  I  have  traversed  with  the  best  philosophical 
minds  of  Germany — I  will  not  speak  for  the  moment  of  the 
world  of  unreason  into  which  I  have  sometimes  deviated — 
but  in  the  very  fact  that  you  are  an  illusioned  child  and  I  a 
full-grown  man,  a  reason-possessing  animal,  may  be  your 
deliverance  and  my  damnation.  For  a  child's  mind  is  still 
moved  by  illusion  and  the  blind  energy  that  gives  rise  to 
illusion,  and  in  this  illusive  energy  there  is  stuff  and  incentive 
for  his  creating,  if  only  a  palace  of  wood  blocks  or  a  sand 
castle  by  the  sea.  And  so  the  young  spirit  of  the  artist, 
taking  possession  of  its  material,  however  unworthy,  impreg- 
nates it  with  itself  and  makes  it  live.  .  .  .  But  Philosophy, 
Reason,  is  quite  another  thing.  Its  processes  are  quite  the 
contrary.  It  disengages  itself  from  matter  and  soars  above  it 
in  the  vast,  infinite  spaces.  What  can  the  creeping  serpent 
know  of  the  thoughts  of  the  soaring  eagle?  The  serpent  is  of 
the  earth,  and  his  wisdom  is  of  the  earth;  and  the  eagle  is  of  the 

167 


BABEL 

air,  and  his  wisdom  is  of  the  infinite  air.  .  .  .  And  so  the 
philosopher,  the  man  of  Reason,  looks  down  upon  the  earth, 
where,  to  his  distant  vision,  all  things  lose  themselves,  become 
at  best  no  more  than  a  pattern  as  of  a  butterfly's  wings, 
relatively  a  nothingness.  Do  you  realise  that  there  are  stars 
compared  to  which  the  earth  is  a  hand-ball?  What  meaning, 
then,  can  earthly  fame  and  glory  and  wealth  and  ambition  have 
to  a  thinking  man?  Reason  gives  man  wings  to  soar  above  all 
earthly  things.  But  it  is  not  as  an  eagle  that  man  flies  above 
the  earth,  it  is  as  a  winged  serpent,  and  there  is  ever  that 
heart-deep  longing  towards  the  earth,  which,  however,  is  no 
longer  the  same,  since  a  more  rarefied  atmosphere  has  been 
enjoyed. . .  .  Mark  you,  the  great  Plato  destroyed  his  tragedies 
when  he  began  to  follow  Socrates.  .  .  .  For  the  serpent  can 
grow  wings  only  at  the  expense  of  his  fangs.  ..." 

"Yet  the  eagle,"  interrupted  Gombarov,  "has  a  beak,  and 
like  the  serpent,  is  still  a  thing  of  prey." 

"That  is  quite  true,"  replied  Julius.  "I  was  leading  up  to 
that.  The  original  bird,  as  you  may  know,  has  evolved  from 
the  reptile,  but  the  first  birds  had  no  beak,  and  that  is  the 
precise  tragedy  of  man  aspiring  towards  the  heights.  .  .  . 
He  has  neither  a  fang  nor  a  beak.  He  is  neither  of  the  earth, 
nor  of  the  air.  .  .  .  And  that  is  my  tragedy.  You  behold 
in  me  one  who  has  desired  and  still  desires  both.  And,  having 
desired  both,  I  have  been  in  a  state  of  incessant  conflict.  For 
I  beg  you  to  remember  that  a  human  being  in  general,  and  one 
of  us— whose  life,  after  all,  consists  of  thinking,  of  continued, 
uninterrupted  soul-processes — in  particular,  is  a  very  complex 
bundle,  and  very  variegated,  and  presents  a  most  surprising 
play  of  colours  when  held  up  to  the  light:  we  are  one  and  all 
things  at  different  moments." 

"Do  you  intend  to  say,"  interrupted  Gombarov  once  more, 
168 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

"that  the  philosopher  has  killed  the  poet  in  you,  that  the  one, 
in  a  sense,  has  overwhelmed  the  other?" 

"Yes  and  no!  That  is  to  say,  only  roughly,"  replied  Julius. 
"Reason  itself  is  a  kind  of  poetry,  perhaps  the  supreme  poetry, 
and  soars  above  all  things.  If  it  were  not  so,  Plato  might  have 
gone  on  writing  tragedies." 

"Perhaps  it  is  a  pity  that  he  did  not  do  so,"  said  Gombarov 
in  a  manner  that  indicated  almost  a  personal  annoyance,  for 
he  was  thinking  this  in  connection  with  Julius  and  not  with 
Plato.  "There  is  the  analogous  case  of  Tolstoy,  who,  if  he 
could,  would  have  destroyed  all  the  artistic  work  that  he  had 
done — all,  in  fact,  that  mattered — for  the  sake  of  his  Christian 
philosophy,  which  few  will  read." 

"Don't  be  angry,  my  dear  friend!"  exclaimed  Julius,  in  a 
voice  full  of  appeal.  "And  please  don't  speak  disrespectfully 
of  men  whose  genius  has  led  them  to  renunciation.  It  takes 
the  greatest  possible  courage  to  renounce.  Had  I  been  able 
to  do  it,  I  should  not  be  returning  to  you  like  this.  I  am  tired, 
life- tired!  Oh,  brother,  cannot  you  understand  me?  Do 
you  not  behold  me  in  my  pain?  All  my  joy  is  lost.  All  my 
illusions  gone.  Ambition  a  dream — though  still  mightily 
lowering  upon  me — fame,  glory;  nay,  brother,  the  very  essence 
of  happiness,  mark  me,  I  have  dissected,  coolly,  gradually, 
inexorably,  and  have  found  this  essence  nichtig.  Do  you 
comprehend  what  I  am  saying?  Do  you?  I  am  coming  back 
an  old  broken  man  to  you." 

He  sighed.  Then  the  soft  look  in  his  eyes  assumed  a  harder, 
more  determined  character,  as  he  went  on: 

"Be  careful  that  you  do  not  misunderstand  me.    You  will 

do  me  the  highest  and  most  unpardonable  wrong  if  you  think 

that  I  have  declared  the  grapes  sour  because  they  are  beyond 

my  reach.    For,  John,  let  me  tell  you,  though  perhaps  you 

169 


BABEL 

know  it  already:  there  is  one  spot,  one  little  corner,  one  spark, 
that  is  pure,  high  and  eternally  noble  within  me,  and  though 
I  may  be  the  veriest  serf  and  craven  in  many  moments  and 
days  in  my  life,  this  one  spark  is  the  judge  and  decider  in  the 
highest  things  of  my  life.  And  all  I  have  said  proceeds  from 
this  one  spark.  And  if  I  had  riches,  I  would  still  be  unhappy, 
still  be  identically  the  same:  for  these  but  cast  an  illusion  of 
gladness  and  joy  over  one,  and  it  is  the  conviction  that  such 
are  illusions  which  crushes  me.  .  .  . 

"Crushes  me?  Yes,  a  thousand  times.  Yes,  for  it  robs 
the  very  basis  on  which  the  whole  fabric  of  my  entire  life  has 
rested.  Right  well  do  I  know  that  no  man  worthy  of  the 
name  rests  on  his  oars  when  he  comes  to  this  point,  but  the 
task  of  remaking  and  remoulding  a  life  is  hard  and  terrible. 
Look  at  history.  How  few  men  have  done  it!  True,  it  is 
already  something  to  have  developed  even  to  this  early  stage; 
true,  you  must  not  esteem  me  so  mean  as  to  say  nay  to  the 
task  at  the  very  outset.  But  I  wish  to  be  honest,  I  do  not 
wish  to  lie,  and  as  I  know  the  terrors  of  the  way  which  I  shall 
have  to  wander,  I  tremble.  But  let  this  be  uttered,  this  one 
word  said,  which  I  shall  not  retract  to  the  end  of  my  existence 
on  earth:  life  is  a  bitter  thing.  This  is  glibly  said,  but 
upon  whom  the  light  of  this  knowledge  first  dawns,  his  soul 
quakes.  And  in  spite  of  the  reconciliations  that  await  the 
hero  who  accepts  life  to  the  bitterest  dregs,  the  ineffable  peace 
that  comes  upon  him  who  emerges  from  the  awful  conflict — 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  whether  the  tale  be  truth  or  fiction,  to 
mention  but  one  instance — in  spite  of  this  peace  that  passeth 
all  understanding,  though  it  may  be  sublime, — in  spite  of  all 
this,  I  say,  this  and  all  that  is  concomitant  therewith:  the 
infinite  woe  that  is  the  greatest  teacher,  and  thus  the  sole 
instructor — in  spite  of  this:  let  no  glib  tongue  dare  to  impugn 
170 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

the  name  and  honour  of  those  who  have  honestly  rejected  life. 
A  mighty  people  and  the  most  preponderant  and  serene  of 
religions,  Buddhism,  see  in  it  their  highest  dogma;  and  one 
of  the  clearest  and  deepest  thinkers,  Arthur  Schopenhauer, 
was  its  avowed  and  fanatical  disciple.  Do  you  know  who 
would  best  understand  such  life-negating  natures?  Not  the 
mob,  the  many,  but  the  heroes  of  the  other  side.  And  one 
thing  more:  these  heroes  have  not  traversed  the  longer  path. 
No,  the  scheme  is  not  to  be  thought  of  as  a  single  line  on 
which  some  pause  and  the  others  go  on,  but  rather  as  a  common 
line  up  to  a  point,  up  to  a  parting  of  the  ways.  .  .  .  But  I 
am  a  rhetorician,  although  I  have  battled  and  am  battling 
against  it.  Carlyle  was  a  rhetorician  .  .  . 

"Well  ..."  and  Julius  laughed,  "here  I  am  talking  away 
very  hard  on  philosophy  on  our  very  first  meeting,  but  I 
haven't  seen  any  one  for  days.  .  .  .  And  I  have  so  much  to 
say  to  you,  and  I  can't.  Do  you  understand  such  torture? 
I  dash  myself  against  the  gate,  but  it's  barred,  bolted,  locked: 
and  within  such  treasures!  Do  you  understand  such  torture? 
Did  you  ever  hear  a  certain  story  of  a  certain  man,  one  who 
never  had  a  moment  of  rest?  By  the  way,  the  story  says  that 
'never'  is  not  what  they  call  a  figure  of  speech.  Not  a  moment 
of  rest.  Every  moment  he  lived.  Just  think  of  that!  Not 
even  in  his  sleep,  or  when  he  was  roaring  with  laughter.  .  .  . 
Well,  junge,  come  out  and  let's  have  some  dinner."  And 
Julius  hit  his  palm  mightily  on  Gombarov's  shoulder,  making 
his  friend  wince.  And  he  looked  more  like  himself,  the  Julius 
that  Gombarov  remembered  of  old. 

Such  was  the  extraordinary  meeting  of  the  two  friends,  who 
had  not  seen  each  other  for  seven  years. 

They  had  dinner  in  a  small  Soho  restaurant,  where,  over 
an  exotic  meal  and  a  bottle  of  wine,  they  exchanged  reminis- 
171 


BABEL 

cences  and  discussed  old  mutual  acquaintances  and  friends. 
As  the  evening  progressed,  Julius  became  more  and  more 
his  old  impetuous  boyish  self,  while  Gombarov  developed  an 
ironic  mood,  and  Julius  luaghed  uproariously  at  his  apt  if 
sometimes  bitter  quips  made  at  the  expense  of  men  and 
things. 

"I  tell  you  what,"  said  Julius,  "your  sufferings,  which  have, 
indeed,  been  great,  have  caused  you  to  grow  an  ironic  shell 
about  you,  which  puts  people  off  who  do  not  know  you.  But 
my  sufferings  have  wholly  disarmed  me,  have  opened  up  all 
the  doors  of  compassion  in  me,  and  I  suffer  with  all.  Do  you 
know,  John,  it  sometimes  seems  to  me  that  I  have  a  greater 
capacity  for  loving  than  any  of  you  .  .  .  But  come,  junge, 
let's  pay  the  bill,  then  get  back  to  my  room." 

Once  up  in  Julius's  room,  they  resumed  the  conversation 
where  they  left  off.  Gombarov  sat  in  the  large  chair,  while 
Julius  lay  on  the  bed,  propped  up  on  the  pillow,  and  from  this 
position  he  talked  as  fluently  as  from  any  other. 

"It  is  a  terrible,  a  terrible  thing,"  Julius  was  saying  in  a 
tired,  poignant  voice,  after  he  had  talked  for  some  time.  "It 
is  a  terrible  thing  to  be  able  to  soar,  yet  to  have  this  intense 
longing  for  the  earth,  this  intense  craving  for  a  body,  I  should 
say  a  particular  body,  so  inseparable  from  the  spirit,  to  feel 
always,  always,  that  one  is  a  lost,  a  wandering  soul,  or  half 
a  soul,  ever  seeking  the  other  half,  needful  to  its  health,  com- 
pletion, spiritual  well-being.  ...  Ah,  need  I  tell  you?  Can't 
you  guess?  .  .  ." 

"A  woman?  .  .  ." 

"A  wonderful  woman.    A  goddess." 

"Doesn't  she  love  you?"  asked  Gombarov,  after  an  awkward 
silence. 

"Yes,  but  matters  are  very  complicated.  She  has  a  husband, 
172 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

a  fine,  brilliant  fellow,  and  once  my  best  friend.    And  she 
has  two  children.  .  .  ." 

"And  she  is  hi  Germany?" 

"No,  hi  Italy,  just  now." 

"What  do  you  propose  doing?" 

"I  want  her  to  come  to  me." 

"Has  she  her  own  income?" 

"My  dear  John,"  said  Julius,  leaning  forward  from  his  pillow, 
"don't  ever  say  such  a  thing  again!" 

"I  didn't  mean  to  hurt  your  feelings,"  explained  Gombarov, 
astonished.  "For,  after  all,  I  have  touched  a  very  sore  wound 
in  myself  at  the  same  time.  ..." 

"Oh! "  exclaimed  Julius,  with  a  new  interest.  "Where,  then, 
is  she?  For  you  look  miserable! " 

"In  Paris." 

"Why  isn't  she  here?" 

"Lack  of  an  income,  my  friend!  Now,  perhaps  you  will 
understand  why  I  asked  you  that  question." 

"Tell  me  about  her." 

Gombarov  told  him  briefly  about  his  affair. 

"Your  position  is  comparatively  simple,"  commented  Julius. 
"Surely,  she  has  offered  to  join  you  here." 

"No.  You  must  not  forget  that  American  women  have  a 
different  conception  of  things.  And  that  is  what  troubles  me. 
I  want  everything  offered  up  to  me,  whether  I  take  it  or  not. 
That  condition  is  a  need  with  me.  Nor  is  this  need  altogether 
actuated  by  selfishness.  You  see,  life  has  been  continuous 
change  with  me.  All  my  life  has  been  one  effort  to  establish 
relations.  But  no  one  has  ever  stuck  long  to  me.  Life  has 
been  a  constant  dropping  away  of  what  has  been  won.  Has 
it  been  my  fault?  I  don't  know.  I  have  always  been  faithful 
to  a  woman,  loyal  to  a  friend.  Change  may  be  salutary,  but 
173 


BABEL 

I  sometimes  find  myself  hating  it.  For  however  changeful  a 
person's  life  may  be,  there  is  always  at  least  one  something, 
at  least  one  thread,  that  he  desires  to  be  constant.  In  the 
midst  of  all  change  we  seek  an  eternal  note  in  life,  one  thing 
we  may  stick  to,  one  thing  that  may  stick  to  us.  Since  I  have 
come  to  London,  life  has  struck  me  as  a  thing  essentially  of 
fragments.  All  you  have  to  do  is  to  walk  out  into  the  street 
and  look  about  you,  or  read  the  newspapers  or  get  to  talking 
to  people  and  have  them  tell  you  about  their  lives,  and  you 
get  the  same  impression:  of  boredom,  disillusion,  of  a  snatching 
at  the  fragments  of  life,  not  a  single  solid  thing  to  cling  to. 
It  is  as  if  a  canker  were  eating  at  the  heart  of  the  world,  and 
at  your  own  heart.  .  .  ." 

"Have  you  felt  that,  too?"  interrupted  Julius.  "But  that 
is  also  true  of  Germany.  One  gets  the  impression  of  the  world 
being  in  the  state  of  an  over-ripe  cheese,  all  but  falling  apart." 

"Living  in  the  midst  of  all  this,"  resumed  Gombarov,  "how 
often  do  I  say  to  myself:  If  only  I  could  depend  even  on  one 
thing  in  lifel  And  the  more  I  think  the  more  I  say  to  myself 
that  only  a  woman,  and  the  love  of  a  woman,  can  redeem  me, 
save  me  from  this  horrible  feeling  of  being  always  on  the  verge 
of  falling  apart.  You  will  call  this  sentimentality,  no 
doubt.  .  .  » 

"Poor  boy!"  said  Julius.  "Yet  nothing  is  so  changeful  as 
a  woman's  love.  I  think  I  may  be  right,  after  all,  that  it  is 
better  to  be  an  eagle  of  reason  than  a  serpent  of  emotion.  One 
must  learn  to  keep  aloof  from  everything." 

"But  even  an  eagle,"  interrupted  Gombarov,  "has  his  she- 
eagle." 

"Yes,  damn  it,  that  is  so!"  exclaimed  Julius,  and  launched 
forth  into  an  eloquent  dissertation  on  love,  from  which  his 
listener  gathered  that  the  speaker  regarded  the  figure  of  speech 
174 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

as  illustrative  of  a  concrete  and  particular  instance.  It  was 
apparent  that  the  "she-eagle"  idea  strongly  appealed  to  him 
as  illustrating  his  own  case. 

After  a  time  the  glow  vanished  from  Julius's  face,  which 
grew  haggard  and  assumed  a  tormented  expression.  "Leave 
me!  Leave  me!"  he  implored  his  friend.  "Leave  me!  I 
want  to  be  alone!" 

Gombarov  rose  and  left,  after  securing  his  friend's  promise 
to  call  next  day.  He  went  away,  thinking:  "What  a  strange 
fellow!  And  how  strange  that  we  should  meet  in  London, 
we  two,  who  were  born  in  Russia,  have  known  each  other  in 
America,  each  with  a  love  in  another  country,  the  one  in  Paris, 
the  other  in  Rome!" 

Next  day  Julius  called,  and  it  was  evident  that  the  Tufnells 
did  not  take  kindly  to  him.  It  was  clear  that  they  regarded 
him  as  a  strange  animal,  an  alien.  Mrs.  Tufnell's  eyes  showed 
apprehension  of  losing  her  lodger. 

"How  can  you  live  with  these  impossible  people?"  was  the 
first  remark  Julius  made  when  they  were  alone  in  Gombarov 's 
room. 

"It  never  occurred  to  me  that  they  were  impossible,"  said 
Gombarov,  naively.  "I  dare  say,  he  being  a  bailiff  is  some- 
thing of  a  monster.  But  she  is  a  good  soul,  and  has  been  as 
kind  to  me  as  a  mother.  Besides,  I  pay  only  nineteen  shillings 
for  the  room  and  all  the  meals,  which  includes  an  eleven 
o'clock  supper,  if  I  want  it.  I  may  tell  you  I  have  taken  to 
eating  meat  three  times  a  day  since  I've  been  hi  England, 
whereas  in  America  I  could  eat  it  no  more  than  three  times  a 
week,  and  it's  all  included  in  the  nineteen  shillings." 

"That  is  indeed  cheap.  Still,  I  think  you  had  better  come 
with  me  to  Princes  Square,"  urged  Julius.  "It  will  cost  you 
thirty-five  shillings,  but  we  will  be  together.  Besides,  it  is 
175 


BABEL 

very  important,  if  you  are  to  get  along,  to  have  a  West  End 
address." 

"I  shall  have  to  write  more  articles  than  I  am  writing  now," 
said  Gombarov,  astonished  at  the  last  piece  of  information, 
and  wondering  how  Julius  had  got  hold  of  it  after  two  days 
hi  London. 

"Ill  help  you,"  said  Julius.  "We  will,  both  of  us,  become 
practical,  and  write  articles  together.  We  will  encourage  one 
another." 

"Ill  think  it  over,"  said  Gombarov. 

Within  a  week,  to  the  great  disappointment  of  Mrs.  Tufnell, 
he  moved  into  Princes  Square.  Here  the  two  friends  talked  and 
planned,  discussed  their  love  affairs,  cooked  coffee  in  a  common 
pot  over  a  methylated  spirit  lamp;  tiring  of  which,  they  took 
long  walks  through  Kensington  Gardens  and  Hyde  Park,  and 
often  continued  their  way  into  Piccadilly  Circus.  Again  there 
were  days  and  nights,  when  the  pair  threaded  their  way 
through  all  sorts  of  streets,  and  Julius,  acting  as  mentor, 
pointed  to  this  house  and  that,  and  informed  his  companion 
of  its  occupancy  by  some  celebrity,  past  or  present,  whether 
duke,  author,  artist  or  politician.  Julius  astonished  him  by 
his  wide  erudition  on  this  peculiar  subject. 

When  they  did  not  do  any  of  these  things  or  were  sick  of 
each  other's  company,  they  either  walked  alone,  or  were  in 
their  separate  rooms,  listening  to  each  other's  footsteps,  as 
of  a  captive  wild  beast  pacing  back  and  forth  in  his  cage. 
Julius's  footfalls  were  the  heavier  and  the  louder,  and  as  he 
was  a  poor  sleeper  he  often  continued  his  peripatetic  medita- 
tions after  the  rest  of  the  house  was  dark  and  everyone  was 
in  bed;  it  was  not  long  before  the  occupant  of  the  room  below 
his  complained  of  the  disconcerting  nocturnal  exercise  over 
his  head. 

176 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

During  this  period  Gombarov  wrote  fewer  articles  for  his 
American  newspapers  than  before,  and  he  watched  the  ebbing 
of  his  resources  with  a  perturbed  heart. 

ENTER  BROTHER 

A  month  after  his  rapprochement  with  Julius,  Gombarov 
heard  from  his  brother  again,  this  time  from  Genoa.  It  was 
Feeder's  plan  to  come  up  to  London  shortly.  A  week  later 
a  telegram  came  at  breakfast,  stating  that  he  would  arrive 
at  Charing  Cross  the  same  morning. 

Gombarov  gobbled  down  his  breakfast  and,  too  restless  to 
sit  still,  took  a  TDUS  to  Charing  Cross,  getting  there  an  hour 
before  the  arrival  of  his  brother's  train.  He  paced  up  and 
down  the  main  train  floor,  while  his  mind  was  engaged  in 
speculating  on  Feodor's  appearance.  After  all,  it  was  no  mean 
event  meeting  a  brother  one  hadn't  seen  for  twenty-seven 
years,  and  himself  only  four  years  old  at  the  last  meeting. 
What  did  he  actually  remember  of  his  brother?  Only  this: 
his  brother's  grey  school  uniform  and  its  silver  buttons,  as 
with  his  small  legs,  he,  John,  then  Vanya,  tried  to  keep  pace 
with  their  wearer  along  the  streets  of  Kieff.  Nor  did  he 
possess  a  picture  of  him  at  any  period  of  his  life.  There  was 
nothing  at  all  to  build  a  portrait  on.  Nevertheless,  a  portrait 
did  shape  itself  in  his  mind — perhaps,  had  shaped  itself  in 
the  unconscious  part  of  him  for  some  time — Russian  of  feature, 
stamped  with  Russian  melancholy,  altogether  like  some  Rus- 
sian Hamlet  in  mood.  Why  should  this  portrait  have  thus 
persisted  in  his  mind,  in  the  absence  of  all  evidence?  He 
was,  indeed,  after  what  he  had  seen  and  known  of  the  various 
members  of  his  family,  incapable  of  conceiving  any  new 
member  whom  he  had  not  seen  as  a  normal,  reasonably  con- 
tented being.  He  had  subconsciously  put  all  his  knowledge, 
177 


BABEL 

of  which  he  was  made  up  as  a  kind  of  mystic  bundle,  into 
the  portrait  of  his  brother. 

Drunken  with  expectancy,  he  paced  up  and  down  past  the 
platform  gates.  Ah,  he  would  know  him  at  once,  the  long-lost 
brother  of  his  secret  desire!  The  minutes  slipped  by  slowly. 
He  entered  the  refreshment  room,  drank  a  cup  of  coffee  at 
the  counter,  and  studied  his  reflection  in  the  mirror  opposite 
The  hot  liquid  warmed  his  blood  and  quickened  his  thoughts. 
He  experienced  one  of  those  occasions,  not  uncommon  to  him, 
when  coffee  intoxicated  him  more  than  could  any  spirituous 
liquor.  It  made  him  keenly  aware  of  his  individual  entity, 
and  not  all  his  misfortune  and  misery  made  him  desire  an 
entity  other  than  was  already  his.  If  fortune  were  to  come 
to  him,  he  desired  it  only  on  his  own  terms;  he  wanted  to 
enjoy  it  with  that  peculiar  consciousness  that  he  learned  to 
know  as  John  Gombarov,  and  not  as  any  one  else.  Vile  or 
good,  he  intensely  desired  to  be  himself.  It  seemed  a  strange, 
unreasonable  desire.  A  lean,  miserable  bundle  he  outwardly 
looked  in  that  mirror,  but  he  felt,  at  all  events,  in  that  instant, 
the  presence  of  the  unrevealed,  the  invisible  him,  his  true  self, 
which,  strong  and  proud  and  audacious,  was  chafing  under  the 
ludicrously  unfitting  shell  conferred  by  ironic  gods.  In  that 
intuitive,  abysmal  instant,  there  was  revealed  to  him  a  black 
ravine,  flooded  as  with  lightning,  tremulous  with  the  fluttering 
of  broad,  black  wings.  This  image  formulated  itself  into  a 
thought,  and  he  said  to  himself:  "I  must  dig  into  myself. 
What  I  find  I  must  make  an  inventory  of — on  paper.  Per- 
haps, I  can  dig  up  all  my  past,  and  get  rid  of  it  in  that  way. 
Then  I  shall  feel  lighter."  But  here  was  his  brother  coming 
to  remind  him,  to  show  him  the  dowmnost  bottom  of  the 
ravine  that  was  his  past.  Nothing  was  lost.  The  terrible 
past  had  a  way  of  projecting  itself  into  the  future.  Ghosts 

178 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

would  arise  and,  holding  hands,  dance  round  him  in  a  whirling 
circle. 

Another  ten  minutes  to  wait.  He  bought  a  platform  ticket, 
and  walked  through  the  gate.  And  waited,  waited  .  .  . 
Unspeakable  suspense,  unutterable  pleasure  ...  A  railway 
station  was  an  alluring  thing;  today,  like  a  fascinating  woman, 
it  held  out  intense  moments.  The  huge  engine  triumphantly 
steamed  in,  trailing  its  long  chain  of  carriages.  Dozens  of 
doors  were  flung  open,  innumerable  porters  hustled.  Gom- 
barov  watched  the  passengers  issuing  forth.  Immediately  in 
front  of  him  he  saw  a  stout  male  form,  its  back  turned,  strug- 
gling with  a  large  bag  through  a  door.  It  scrambled  down 
to  the  platform,  then  turned  full  face  towards  Gombarov. 

Two  glances  interpenetrated.  Recognition  was  instantaneous. 
The  stout  figure  and  the  lean  rushed  towards  one  another 
and  embraced. 

"Ah,  Vanya!" 

"Ah,  Feodyal" 

Then  they  drew  back,  and  scrutinised  one  another  from 
head  to  foot. 

"You  are  as  thin  as  a  herring,"  said  Feodor,  in  Russian. 
"I  could  make  a  mouthful  of  you!" 

"You  are  as  fat  as  a  whale,"  retorted  John,  in  the  same 
language.  "You'd  last  me  at  least  six  months!" 

"I'd  make  tough  eating,"  replied  Feodor.    "I  am  all  muscle." 

A  greyhound  and  a  bull-dog  could  not  have  presented  a 
more  violent  contrast.  John  was  slightly  taller.  Feodor  had 
a  thick  neck,  a  pair  of  mighty  shoulders  and  a  chest  which 
would  have  done  credit  to  a  heavy-weight  champion.  They 
held  their  hats  in  their  hands,  and  John's  eyes  were  for  a 
moment  fixed  on  Feodor 's  huge  head,  with  its  scant,  short- 
cropped  hair,  tinged  with  grey. 
179 


BABEL 

"Oh,  you  needn't  look  at  my  hair,"  laughed  Feodor.  "I 
admit  you've  got  the  best  of  me  there.  You  look  like  a  poet 
with  your  long  black  locks.  Are  you  a  poet?  Fancy,  me  a 
brother,  and  not  even  knowing  your  occupation!" 

Feodor's  clean-shaven,  swarthy  face  was  gay  with  the  rip- 
pling smile  of  one  who  lived  an  outdoor  life  and  knew  how 
to  make  the  best  of  it.  There  was,  certainly,  nothing  about 
his  person  that  suggested  the  melancholy  Russian  one  meets 
with  in  books. 

"Cheer  up,  Vanya!"  he  exclaimed.  "Greet  your  long-lost 
brother  with  a  smile  from  ear  to  ear.  And,  in  a  low  voice,  he 
began  to  hum  a  Russian  comic  song: 

Chook,  chook,  choomandra, 
Navarila  booraka  .  .  . 

"I  tell  you  what,"  he  said,  suddenly  breaking  off.  "You  are 
going  to  laugh  with  me  for  the  next  three  days,  for  that's  how 
long  I  am  going  to  stay  with  you." 

"Do  you  want  your  bags  carried?"  asked  a  passing  porter. 

"Yes,  and  a  taxi,"  said  Gombarov. 

They  walked  behind  the  porter,  Feodor  laughing,  John 
smiling.  Behind  his  effortful  grimace,  John  was  thinking: 

"Yes,  that  is  how  I  should  have  been  had  I  been  properly 
taken  care  of.  That  is  how  I  should  have  been  if  as  a  boy 
I  had  got  proper  food,  proper  sleep,  proper  education.  That 
is  how  happy  I  should  have  been.  That  is  how  I  should  have 
laughed,  I  had  the  makings  of  a  big  frame  like  his,  of  muscles 
like  his,  of  an  outlook  on  life  like  his  .  .  ." 

And  a  picture  rose  in  his  mind  of  himself  as  a  boy,  waking, 

after  five  hours'  sleep,  to  the  clamour  of  an  alarm-clock, 

wading  through  the  snow  in  the  night  to  secure  his  little  bundle 

of  newspapers,  braving  the  frosts  and  the  rains,  suffering 

180 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

insults  and  humiliations  .  .  .  then,  in  the  morning,  scurrying 
home  to  breakfast  and  sleepily  dragging  himself  to  school  .  .  . 
Three  years  of  thisl  Then  those  other  years  that  followed, 
in  a  factory,  and  ...  He  did  not  want  to  think  any 
further. 

"My  God!    My  God!"  he  whispered  under  his  breath. 

He  walked  beside  his  brother  and  smiled  grimacingly,  which 
made  him  feel  like  a  pitiful  gargoyle.  He  wanted  to  weep. 
Oh,  how  he  wanted  to  weep!  It  came  all  over  him  at  once, 
the  whole  tragedy  of  his  life,  the  futility  of  his  existence,  and 
the  futility  of  the  existence  of  all  the  Gombarovs.  Oh,  how 
he  wanted  to  weep,  to  bury  his  head  somewhere,  and  weep, 
weep,  weep  .  .  .  They  sat  in  the  taxi;  his  brother's  robust 
hand  was  on  his  shoulder;  it  gave  him  the  sensation  of  shrink- 
ing and  of  smallness,  and  he  smiled  grimacingly. 

"What  are  you  thinking  of,  Vanya?"  asked  Feodor.  "Some 
one  would  think  you  were  married  to  a  vixen  to  have  such 
a  worried  look!  Are  you  married?  To  be  sure,  you  are  old 
enough.  Well,  look  at  me,  my  boy.  I  am  married,  am  a 
father,  too,  three  little  ones,  and  I  wouldn't  give  one  up,  no, 
not  I,  not  for  a  mint  of  money.  .  .  .  Come,  tell  your  brother 
what  you  are  worried  about! " 

This  was  rubbing  it  in,  as  it  evoked  another  flood  of  mem- 
ories concerning  certain  quests  in  his  life,  not  gratified.  .  .  . 
With  an  effort  he  controlled  himself  and,  incongruously  smiling, 
replied: 

"No,  Feodya,  I  am  not  married.  But  I  was  just  thinking 
how  strange  it  was  that  we  should  have  recognised  each  other. 
Just  like  that!  Now,  I  recognised  you  by  your  nose,  also 
by  the  formation  of  your  eyes,  but  chiefly  by  your  nose.  You 
have  our  family  nose,  just  like  grandmother's,  mother's  and 
sister's,  long  and  aquiline." 


BABEL 

"I  can  return  the  compliment,"  said  Feodor,  laughing.  "I 
also  recognised  you  by  your  nose." 

There  was  a  pause.    John  was  thinking: 

"There  is  this  about  a  nose.  Least  of  all  the  bodily  organs 
is  it  dependent  on  food,  affection,  women,  money,  exercise,  or 
disposed  to  any  radical  visible  change.  At  all  events,  it  always 
keeps  the  same  size  and  shape,  so  that  the  only  outward 
difference  it  may  present  is  purely  relative,  in  the  degree  that 
it  may  belong  to  a  filled-out  or  a  starved  face.  There  is  my 
half-brother,  Absalom,  whose  nose  seems  to  be  larger  since 
he  has  become  a  vegetarian,  but  that,  of  course,  only  seems 
so,  because  his  under-nourished  face  has  grown  thinner.  On 
the  other  hand,  Feodor's  face  is  almost  round  from  good 
health,  and  so  his  nose  seems  smaller,  though  actually,  our 
noses  are  identically  the  same." 

Grotesque,  naive,  child-like  thoughts  had  a  way  of  bracing 
him,  and  he  said  aloud: 

"Yes,  we  have  certainly  been  granted  a  nose.  I  always 
say  to  myself:  'If  I  win  out  hi  life,  it  will  be  by  a  nose!' 
It's  an  English  racing  term,  and  it  suits  our  family  to  a  T." 

"What  a  huge  city!  What  a  magnificent  park!"  exclaimed 
Feodor. 

They  were  passing  Hyde  Park,  along  Bayswater  Road. 

"Yes,  and  you  haven't  seen  a  fraction  of  it!"  replied  John, 
with  a  personal  pride  that  might  have  done  credit  to  a  born 
cockney.  He  directed  his  brother's  attention  to  points  of 
interest  along  the  way. 

No  sooner  had  he  reached  his  room  in  Princes  Square  than 
Feodor  began  rolling  up  his  sleeves,  in  order  to  wash.  Lily 
was  not  long  in  coming  in  with  a  jug  of  hot  water.  Full  of 
fun,  and  prettily  smiling,  she  was  about  to  walk  out  of  the 
room,  but  Feodor,  spreading  his  arms  out,  barred  the  way. 
182 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

"What  your  name  is?"  asked  Feodor,  in  the  best  English 
he  could  muster,  to  the  amusement  of  the  others. 

"Lily,"  said  the  girl,  growing  prettier  with  blushes. 

"A  pret-ty  name,"  said  Feodor.  "Is  ze  pret-ty  smile  for 
me?" 

Lily  giggled  with  pleasure,  partly  hiding  her  face  in  her 
pinafore  and  teasingly  showing  one  eye. 

"You  like  my  brother,  yes?"  laughed  Feodor,  chucking  her 
under  the  visible  side  of  her  chin. 

Lily  made  an  affirmative  nod  and,  still  giggling,  rushed  out 
of  the  room. 

"A  handsome  girl!"  resumed  Feodor,  in  Russian.  "I  dare 
say,  you  have  a  kiss  every  morning  before  breakfast.  Out 
with  it,  you  rogue!  Say  that  you  have.  Or  you  are  no 
brother  of  mine!" 

"I  have  a  girl,"  said  John,  half  shyly. 

"Ah,  I  congratulate  you!     And  where  is  this  girl  of  yours?" 

"In  Paris!" 

"Hah,  hah!  That's  a  good  one!  In  Paris!  What's  the 
good  of  a  girl  in  Paris?  And  how  do  you  know  whether  she 
may  not  be  kissing  some  other  young  man?"  asked  Feodor, 
teasingly. 

John  winced.  Ever  since  he  had  received  that  letter  from 
Winifred,  telling  him  of  the  young  men  who  called  at  tea, 
certain  vague  suspicions  troubled  him  with  an  irritating  fre- 
quency. It  suddenly  occurred  to  him  that  Lily  had  a  "boy," 
who  took  her  out  every  Wednesday,  and  an  idea  came  into 
his  mind,  which  he  would  put  to  the  test  at  the  first  oppor- 
tunity. In  the  meantime,  the  trivial  episode  of  Lily  and  his 
brother  had  given  him  another  aspect  of  Feodor 's  bounty  of 
joy,  and  this  helped  him  to  understand  what  lay  crushed  in 
himself  under  all  the  strata  of  pain  and  suffering.  A  no 


BABEL 

uncertain  voice  spoke  within  him,  and  asserted  with  convic- 
tion that  had  his  life  been  better  conditioned,  he  too  should 
have  been  like  that,  a  normal  human  being  enjoying  all  that 
life  gave  to  enjoy.  And  yet — that  was  the  irony  of  it — he 
could  not  and  would  not  live  that  life  now.  With  his  intenser 
perceptions,  gained  through  suffering  and  experience  of  the 
arts,  he  was  yearning  for  a  life  that  was  at  once  sensuous 
and  exquisite,  subtle-nuanced  and  many-faceted,  like  the  dream 
he  once  had  had  of  a  room,  heptagonal  and  seven-doored,  each 
door  leading  to  a  new  delight.  But,  as  in  that  dream,  so 
now  in  life,  he  sat  in  a  hypnotic  chair  which  held  him  helpless 
and  from  which  he  could  not  rise,  though  seven  genii  opened 
seven  doors  slightly  and  their  dark-lashed  eyes  beckoned  him 
on!  "I  desire  too  much!"  was  written  in  Greek  over  the 
portrait  of  a  celebrity  he  had  forgotten,  and  he  thought:  "It 
could  be  written  over  mine!" 

The  boarding-house  mistress,  duly  impressed  with  the 
importance  of  the  occasion,  assigned  John,  Feodor  and  Julius 
a  separate  table  in  the  dining  room.  This  was  to  be  appre- 
ciated when  one  considered  the  nature  of  the  clientele  of  the 
houses  in  that  region  in  pre-war  days.  This  clientele  consisted 
mostly  of  women,  old  and  middle-aged,  maidenly  and  super- 
annuated, widows  and  wives  and  daughters  of  Anglo-Indian 
officers  and  of  Colonials  generally,  by-products  of  Empire, 
living  in  idleness  on  small  incomes,  pensions  and  annuities. 
Without  occupation  and  lacking  outlet  for  their  moribund 
energies,  they  vented  their  spleen  on  the  poor  over-worked 
housemaids,  whom  more  than  once  Gombarov  and  Julius  had 
caught  crying  in  the  rooms  or  on  the  stairs.  Lily,  it  is  true, 
being  a  healthy  fun-loving  country  girl,  got  her  revenge  by 
mimicking  the  ways  of  the  termagants  before  the  two  friends, 
but  Mag,  the  other  girl,  took  things  to  heart,  and  was  so  over- 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

whelmed  by  Julius's  pitying  kindness  that,  to  his  chagrin  and 
humiliation,  she  straightway  fell  in  love  with  him,  and,  snatch- 
ing his  hand,  would  kiss  it  and  slobber  over  it  with  the  grateful 
affection  of  a  dog,  which  caused  Julius  to  keep  his  hands  in 
his  pockets  whenever  poor  Mag  entered  the  room. 

Julius,  who  was  in  the  dining-room  first,  greeted  the  appear- 
ance of  the  two  brothers  with  an  outburst  of  welcome.  He 
was  clearly  overcome  with  astonishment. 

"Well,  well!"  he  exclaimed.  "You  two,  side  by  side,  look 
like  a  Before  and  After  advertisement!" 

They  seated  themselves  and  began  to  talk.  They  found 
that  they  could  best  get  along  if  Julius  and  Feodor  talked 
German,  John  and  Julius  English,  Feodor  and  John  Russian; 
so  that  there  was  the  odd  spectacle  of  three  persons  sitting 
at  one  table  and  conversing  in  three  languages. 

"You  may  well  be  astonished,"  Feodor  said  to  Julius,  "I 
come  to  London,  expecting  Vanya  to  look  like  a  breezy  young 
American,  full  of  vim  and  dash,  not  to  say  business,  and  what 
do  I  find?  A  melancholy  poet!" 

"And  I,"  retaliated  Gombarov,  "had  expected  to  find  in 
Feodya  a  real  Russian,  a  sort  of  Hamlet,  like  Rudin.  And  I 
find — well,  you  can  see  for  yourself!" 

At  that  moment  a  young  Canadian  came  into  the  room. 
He  had  never  spoken  either  to  John  or  Julius  before,  had 
hardly  more  than  nodded  to  them,  though  they  had  been  in 
the  house  for  some  time.  Obviously  he  had  taken  them  for 
outrageous  foreigners.  On  entering  the  room,  his  eyes  fell 
at  once  on  Feodor  and  scrutinised  him.  A  gleam  of  pleasure 
was  visible  in  them  as  he  made  his  way  among  the  tables  and 
paused  before  the  animated  trio. 

"Excuse  me,"  he  drawled  in  a  nasal  tone,  addressing  himself 
to  Feodor.  "But  you  are  from  the  States,  aren't  you?" 

185 


BABEL 

The  three  of  them  burst  out  laughing,  so  uproariously  as 
to  cause  the  rest  of  the  diners  to  look  round.  It  was  unusual 
to  laugh  so  healthily  in  a  place  as  respectable  as  this. 

"Have  I  made  a  mistake?"  asked  the  astonished  Canadian, 
laughing  with  them. 

"This  man  is  a  Russian,"  explained  Julius.  "This  is  the 
Yank!"  and  he  pointed  a  derisive  finger  at  Gombarov. 

"Well,  I  never!"  was  all  the  Canadian  could  find  to  say, 
and  after  a  bewildered  pause  apologised  for  his  intrusion. 

None  appreciated  the  irony  of  the  episode  more  than 
Gombarov,  and  more  than  once  they  returned  to  jest 
about  it. 

The  brothers  spent  the  rest  of  the  day  in  sight-seeing,  and 
John  found  it  hard  to  keep  up  with  Feodor's  inexhaustible 
energy.  They  went  to  bed  that  night  without  touching  upon 
very  intimate  matters. 

Next  morning  John  rose  early.  Lily  came  in  with  a  jug 
of  shaving  water.  She  looked  pretty  and  fresh  in  her  clean 
white  pinafore  and  white  cap,  her  blue  eyes  were  smiling,  her 
pink  complexion  invited  the  touch  of  fingers  or  lips,  a  wisp 
of  fair  hair  hung  seductively  over  one  ear  and  partly  concealed 
it,  her  firm  virginal  breasts  were  outlined  clearly. 

As  Lily  put  down  the  jug  on  the  washing-stand,  Gombarov 
took  one  of  her  hands,  and  she  did  not  demur. 

"Kiss  me,  Lily!"  he  said. 

"I  won't!"  she  replied,  drawing  her  head  backward. 

He  put  an  arm  around  her  waist,  and  a  struggle  ensued, 
Once  he  prevailed,  and  held  her  tightly  against  him,  his  lips 
on  hers.  She  made  no  further  protest. 

"What  soft  lips  you've  got!"  she  whispered,  when  at  last 
their  lips  parted.  "Any  girl  would  like  them.  You've  got  a 
girl,  haven't  you?" 

1*6 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

"What  about  your  young  man?"  he  asked,  without  answering 
her  question.  "I  know  you  have  one!" 

"Of  course,  I  have.    What  about  him?" 

"Your  young  man  wouldn't  like  your  kissing  me,  would  he?" 

She  laughed.    "He  needn't  know,  need  he?" 

"But  you  love  him,  don't  you?  I  mean  you  wouldn't  like 
him  kissing  any  other  girl,  would  you?" 

"Let  me  catch  him,  and  his  number  will  be  upl"  she 
exclaimed  with  amusing  asperity. 

Someone  in  the  corridor  called  Lily.  Gombarov  lathered 
his  face  and  proceeded  to  make  rapid  strokes  with  razor  across 
his  face,  to  keep  pace  with  his  thoughts. 

"Lily  is  nice  as  girls  go.  Brought  up  respectably.  And  she 
has  a  boy.  And  she  loves  him.  Yet  she  kisses  me  and  evi- 
dently takes  pleasure  in  it.  And  objects  to  her  boy  doing  it. 
And  I,  too,  who  didn't  do  it  for  pleasure's  sake,  nevertheless 
took  pleasure  in  it.  There's  Winifred  hi  Paris,  and  those 
young  men  who  come  to  see  her.  There  must  be  moments 
when  these  young  men  try  to  kiss  her.  Is  she  then  different 
from  Lily?  But  there  must  be  other  moments  ...  do  they, 
then,  stop  at  kisses?  Would  Lily  stop  at  kisses?  .  .  ." 

Thus  his  thoughts  rambled  on.  One  sudden,  daring  thought 
stirred  above  the  rest,  and  agitated  him.  It  was  to  agitate 
him  for  days  to  come. 

All  that  day  he  and  Feodor  spent  in  sight-seeing,  which 
included  a  strenuous  visit  to  the  East  India  Docks,  as  Feodor 
was  interested  in  such  matters  professionally.  They  had  lunch 
at  a  hotel  in  the  Strand,  where  another  of  those  extraordinary 
episodes  occurred,  confirming  still  more  Gombarov's  impression 
of  the  bewilderingly  complex  network  of  modern  life.  It  was 
after  lunch.  They  were  sitting  in  the  lounge,  sipping  their 
black  coffee  and  liqueurs,  just  as  they  might  hi  any  lounge 

187 


BABEL 

in  any  hotel  in  Europe,  when  a  tall,  broad-shouldered  English- 
man, who,  for  some  time  had  been  looking  intently  at  Feodor 
from  another  chair,  walked  up  to  them  and  said: 

"Mr.  Semenov,  I  believe?" 

"Yes,  and  you  are  ..."  Feodor  looked  questioningly  at 
the  speaker. 

"I  have  a  better  memory  than  you,"  said  the  latter,  smiling. 
"Perhaps  you  will  know  me  when  I  remind  you  of  the  English- 
man with  whom  you  kindly  shared  a  samovar  at  Nijni-Nov- 
gorod  two  years  ago." 

"Oh,  yes,  Mister  Richards!  I  did  not  expect  ze  pleasure 
to  meet  again.  I  found  my  lost  brother.  That  is  why  I 
come  here." 

Gombarov  was  glad  because  of  the  interruption.  He  and 
Feodor  had  been  discussing  painful  family  affairs.  Feodor 
had  been  urging  him  to  adopt  his  own  father's  name,  that  of 
Semenov,  and  to  drop  Gombarov. 

"What  do  you  owe  the  man,  except  your  troubles?"  asked 
Feodor.  "According  to  your  own  account,  he  has  ruined  you 
all,  even  his  own  children.  As  you  may  know,  father  pro- 
vided some  thousands  of  roubles  for  the  education  of  Raya, 
Dunya  and  yourself.  You  were  to  have  become  a  doctor. 
Instead  the  villain,  whose  name  you  bear,  has  squandered  the 
money — on  what?  Just  smoke,  as  far  as  I  can  see.  As  for 
your  mother — and  it  is  my  misfortune  as  well  as  yours  to  be 
her  son — what  do  you  owe  her,  who  has  driven  you  on  the 
streets  at  ten,  who  ..." 

"She  has  suffered,"  interrupted  John.  "If  she  has  made  a 
mistake,  she  has  paid  for  it  dearly.  Who  is  to  blame  for 
people  making  mistakes?  People  cannot  help  themselves. 
They  become  wise  too  late,  when  all  the  mischief  has  been 
done.  I  remember  when  I  was  fourteen  I  wanted  to  run 
188 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

away  from  home.  I  often  regret  that  I  didn't,  as  it  might 
have  been  better  for  the  family  as  well  as  for  me.  Yet  who 
can  tell  what  is  best  in  the  long  run?  Who  can  explain  one's 
actions  or  inactions,  why  one  has  done  this  and  not  done  that? 
A  thousand,  or  even  ten  thousand,  previous  actions  or  inactions, 
on  the  part  of  ourselves  or  our  forefathers,  may  be  responsible 
for  the  pettiest  action  we  do  in  life.  It  is  paralyzing  to  think 
of  it.  You  do  not  love  our  mother,  but  what  do  I  know  of 
my  father?  I  sometimes  feel  as  if  I  were  born  into  this  world 
without  father,  mother,  relatives,  or  country.  .  .  .  Whom  do 
I  owe  anything?  Who,  except  friends  and  occasional  strangers, 
have  shown  me  kindness  or  affection?  But  I  was  born  full 
of  pity,  and  I  have  always  pitied  all  who  have  suffered  .  .  . 
but  whether  I  have  loved  I  cannot  say.  I  have  hated  my 
stepfather,  and  I  have  pitied  even  him.  You  ask  me  to  change 
my  name,  but  what  difference  can  it  make  whose  name  I  bear? 
Life  itself,  as  I  have  seen  it,  seems  ugly  and  unbearable,  and 
it  has  made  people  what  they  are.  We  call  ourselves  civilised, 
but  how  often  I  have  wished  that  I  were  born  a  savage.  For 
I  have  the  great  misfortune  to  be  able  to  see  all  sides,  and 
so  I  pity  everyone,  including  myself,  almost  without  exception. 
Of  course,  I  am  sorry  for  father,  at  his  age  spending  his  last 
days  alone.  As  for  love,  that  is  another  thing.  Tell  me,  why 
should  I  love  my  father,  whom  I  do  not  remember,  whom  I 
do  not  know,  who  has  left  me  all  these  years  to  my  own  fate, 
and  what  a  fate?  .  .  ." 

"My  answer  is  this!" — and  Feodor  drew  a  small  photograph 
from  his  wallet  and  handed  it  to  John. 

It  was  a  portrait  of  an  old  man  of  extraordinary  beauty  and 

dignity,  with  full-grown  beard  and  hair  as  profuse  as  that  of 

a  youth,  yet  of  a  snowy  whiteness  that  gave  distinction,  even 

loveliness,  to  the  face,  suffused  with  a  spiritual  softness,  a 

I89 


BABEL 

kindliness,  having  in  it  an  inscrutable  something  to  kindle 
gentle  feelings  in  others. 

John  silently  studied  the  portrait,  and  a  strange  feeling 
came  over  him  as  from  the  sudden  contact  of  a  paternal  hand 
for  the  first  time.  Oh,  what  sadness,  what  infinite  sadness, 
was  in  those  eyes,  yet  without  a  tinge  of  bitterness!  Oh, 
father,  dear  father,  take  pity  on  your  son,  see  what  they  have 
done  to  him!  So  young,  and  there  is  no  peace  or  rest  for  him! 
He  is  quite  alone,  wandering  to  find  home.  He  is  at  your  feet, 
put  your  hands  of  blessing  on  his  head.  Ah,  if  you  only  knew 
how  he  needs  your  blessing!  Holy  man,  father,  God  will  hear 
you,  if  he  will  not  hear  him,  your  son!  .  .  . 

Gombarov  was  overcome  by  the  intensity  of  his  emotion, 
and  the  thoughts  it  engendered.  It  was  the  only  time  that 
he  had  ever  experienced  filial  feeling,  and  he  understood  what 
a  void  had  been  his  hi  the  childhood  that  had  passed.  And 
he  was  like  a  child  now,  begging  what  was  due  to  a  child. 
This  feeling  flared  up,  a  flame  that  filled  his  frame.  He 
wanted  to  die. 

"A  fine  head  ...  a  fine  head!"  he  murmured  faintly,  hand- 
ing the  portrait  back  to  his  brother.  Then,  after  a  pause,  he 
added:  "You  grew  up  with  him,  Feodya.  Perhaps  you  can 
tell  me  whether  you  see  any  resemblance  between  him  and 
me?" 

"Not  a  little,  but  a  great  deal,"  replied  Feodor. 

"But  I  also  resemble  my  mother  a  great  deal,"  said  John. 
"Ill  show  you  a  portrait  of  her  when  we  get  back  to  the 
house." 

"I  don't  want  to  see  it,"  said  Feodor. 

John  took  little  note  of  the  brusqueness  of  the  answer, 
for  a  new  thought,  a  new  discovery,  took  possession  of  him. 
It  was  a  possible  explanation  of  certain  clashes  in  his  tempera- 
190 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

ment.  Undoubtedly,  his  mother  and  his  father  were  incom- 
patible temperaments.  Feodor  was  their  eldest  child,  he  the 
youngest.  Between  Feodor's  birth  and  his  the  incompatibility 
of  the  father  and  the  mother  had  time  to  establish  itself. 
Altogether,  his  mother  had  had  thirteen  children,  four  of  whom, 
luckily  for  themselves  and  others  concerned,  died  at  birth  or 
in  infancy.  She  had  the  fierce,  unappeasable  creativeness  of 
a  mother,  and  all  the  unconscious,  fierce  self-assertion  of  some- 
thing that  was  part  and  parcel  of  nature,  pre-destined,  like 
Nature  herself,  perpetually  to  create;  wherefore,  Nature  is  so 
often  referred  to  as  Mother  Nature,  a  creature  both  kindly 
and  fierce.  In  "old  Gombarov,"  himself  a  "creator,"  man  of 
genius,  irresponsibly  creative,  she  found  her  mate  and  counter- 
part, like  herself,  like  Nature,  caring  but  to  create,  careless 
of  the  fate  of  offspring,  who  are  left  to  shift  for  themselves, 
a  prey  to  the  strong,  with  no  other  defence  against  surrounding 
life  but  the  cunning  and  protective  colouring  conferred  by  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation,  which  does  not  always  preserve. 
John  had  inherited  this  fierce  creative  spirit  from  his  mother, 
his  philosophic  reasonableness  from  his  father,  who  was  forty 
when  he  was  born.  As  everything  in  life  sought  an  expression, 
a  perpetuation  of  itself,  so  all  the  fierce  incompatibility  of 
his  parents  chose  him  for  its  battleground,  fought  in  him 
continually,  would  fight  in  him  to  the  last  day.  He  now 
understood  why  he  was  hard  and  pitiful,  timid  and  assertive, 
why  he  wanted  to  write  books  and  be  the  father  of  children, 
why  women  repulsed  and  attracted  him,  why  he  was  so  shy 
with  them,  yet  wished  to  command  them,  make  them  do  his 
bidding.  His  conversations  on  this  subject  with  Julius  were 
fierce,  as  if  all  his  fierceness  went  into  his  words.  No  wonder 
Julius  sometimes  called  him  "Turk!" 
But  there  was  adventure  in  discovery,  in  the  continuous 
191 


BABEL 

finding  of  oneself,  in  the  exploring  of  every  crevice  of  one's 
heart  and  brain. 

There  was  a  painful  pause  after  Feodor's  remark,  in  which 
he  conveyed  his  refusal  to  see  his  mother's  picture.  Then 
John  observed: 

"As  you  like  .  .  ." 

It  was  then  that  the  Englishman  whom  Feodor  had  met  at 
Nijni-Novgorod  came  up  to  them,  and  the  subject  was  not 
resumed. 

Feodor  stayed  three  days  and  left,  after  exhausting  John's 
energy  hi  sight-seeing.  They  parted  on  friendly  terms  at 
Charing-Cross,  but  the  departure  left  no  void  in  John's  heart. 
He  was  simply  indifferent,  and  neither  hated  nor  loved  his 
brother.  Twenty-seven  years  were  an  abyss  of  time  not  to 
be  bridged  in  three  days. 

Yet  this  mood  of  indifference  hid  something  else.  It  was 
a  shallow  crust  which  covered  smouldering  feelings,  volcanic 
in  temper.  From  half -past  eight  in  the  evening,  the  time  of 
the  departure  of  his  brother's  train,  until  twelve,  moved  by 
these  fires,  he  strode  the  streets.  But  at  night,  in  bed,  his 
confused,  tormented  feelings  crystallised  into  definite  thoughts, 
which  arose  from  the  same  point  and  pursued  the  same 
course,  yet  ultimately  forked  off  into  two  separate  channels, 
one  purely  personal,  the  other  abstractedly  detached;  for  he 
had  a  way,  at  odd  moments,  of  escaping  from  his  troubles  in 
a  philosophy,  or,  if  not  exactly  escaping,  then  watching  his 
affairs  and  his  passions  with  dispassionate  eyes,  eyes  of  a 
spectator.  Thus  his  thoughts  ran  on: 

There  was  his  life  before  his  brother  came  on  the  scene. 

It  was  a  bad  enough  mixture,  full  of  strange,  incompatible 

ingredients.    All  these  fragments  of  his  life  were  in  a  mortar, 

and  his  brother's  coming  was  like  the  acting  of  a  mysterious 

192 


LETTERS,  STRANGE  MEETINGS,  GHOSTS 

hand  which  held  a  pestle  and  ground  down  the  contents  of 
the  mortar,  and  there  was  one  ingredient  which  permeated  all 
the  others,  and  it  contained  the  root  and  secret  of  all  his  desires. 
It  was  the  creative  ingredient,  his  mother's  soul,  now  permeat- 
ing his  being,  speaking  through  him,  crying  for  perpetuation, 
for  satisfaction,  for  material  to  wreak  its  passion  on.  This 
recognition  of  his  mother,  this  new  knowledge  of  himself,  was 
a  seed  of  fatality,  since  it  fiercely  clamoured  for  freedom, 
growth,  abundant  expression  of  itself.  Knowledge  did  not 
act  as  a  controller,  but  demanded  further  knowledge.  "Knowl- 
edge of  good  and  evil  .  .  ."  He  pondered  over  the  phrase, 
and  thought:  "But  knowledge  is  in  itself  evil,  as  it  arises 
from  curiosity,  curiosity  leads  to  experience,  and  experience 
is  evil.  To  experience  is  to  know,  and  I  want  experience. 
There  is  something  profound  in  the  Biblical  use  of  'to  know' 
.  .  .  'And  Adam  knew  his  wife  .  .  .'  An  artist  knows  his 
material  ..."  His  mother's  fires  in  him  fiercely  craved  for 
a  perpetuation  of  themselves  .  .  . 
And  this  led  to  the  second  line  of  thought: 
Why  was  not  this  craving  granted  satisfaction?  Why  was 
he  allowed  to  suffer  so?  Why  had  the  poor  Gombarovs  to  suffer 
so?  Why  did  the  whole  world  suffer  so?  And  they  all  seemed 
to  suffer  from  the  same  affliction:  the  thwarting  of  a  thousand 
natural  desires,  above  all,  the  desire  to  create.  Why  was  he 
so  sensitively  built  that  all  his  own  sorrows  and  thwartings, 
and  those  of  the  poor  Gombarovs,  and  of  the  whole  world, 
should  take  refuge  in  his  frail  frame,  and  rage  and  boil  and 
seethe  there?  Was  it  that  some  day  he  might  pour  himself 
into  a  book?  It  was  a  terrible,  an  appalling  thought  to  him, 
the  sudden,  flashing  thought  that  he  was  chosen  to  bear  it 
all  for  no  other  reason  than  that  some  day  he  might  pour  the 
concentrated  essence  of  all  this  sorrow  into  a  book,  and  that, 
193 


BABEL 

in  its  turn,  this  precious  essence  might  diffuse  itself  among 
men  to  console  them  with  the  refining  processes  of  noble  sorrow. 
That  was,  then,  the  meaning  of  the  phrase  of  "Christ  in  men" 
...  It  was  something  to  know  the  taste  of  the  sacred  wafer 
soaked  in  Christ's  blood.  .  .  . 


194 


CHAPTER  V:  BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

"God  hath  made  man  upright;  but 
they  have  sought  out  many  inven- 
tions" 

— ECCLESIASTES,  vii :  29. 

BREAKER  OF  IKONS 

GOMBAROV  had  not  been  many  weeks  in  London  when  he 
bethought  himself  of  its  great  men.  There  were  many  reasons 
for  his  interest,  and  two  in  particular.  There  was  the  circum- 
stance of  his  coming  to  London  because  he  wanted  to  become 
an  author,  and  he  thought  he  needed  a  sight  of  great  men  and 
the  example  of  great  men.  There  was  the  second,  equally 
essential  circumstance  of  his  having  to  earn  a  living,  and  the 
interviewing  of  celebrities  for  two  or  three  American  journals, 
with  which  he  had  contact,  offered  one  source  of  remunerative 
employment. 

As  he  often  found  himself  shy  even  before  ordinary  men, 
the  thought  of  standing  in  the  presence  of  great  men  terrified 
him,  and  he  knew  he  must  do  it  precisely  because  it  terrified 
him,  if  only  to  dare  his  soul  and  to  conquer  his  fears. 

In  those  days  he  had  an  exalted  idea  of  great  men.  He 
imagined  them  as  being  but  little  short  of  gods,  if  in  human 
form,  from  whose  mere  presence  emanated  an  aura,  a  divine 
glow,  whose  very  speech  was  as  the  emitting  of  sparks,  starting 
a  conflagration,  where  a  spark  fell.  England,  he  knew,  had 

195 


BABEL 

several  great  men,  to  whose  voices  at  least  two,  and  sometimes 
five  continents  paid  homage.  But  what  if  one  stood  face  to 
face  with  one  of  these  beings  who  possessed  such  far-reaching 
vibrant  voices!  Surely  a  fine  soul  took  refuge  in  a  fine  body, 
and  by  that  he  did  not  mean  that  it  was  necessarily  a  large 
body,  or  a  perfect  body,  but  that  it  was  essentially  an  expres- 
sive body,  an  instrument  rich  with  magnetic  force.  And  he 
still  retained  his  old  idea  of  man  and  artist  synthetic  in  the 
same  person,  and  could  not  mentally  dissociate  the  two.  Had 
he  not  read  Plato's  Banquet,  and  were  not  all  who  took  part 
hi  it  of  the  man -god  tribe? 

He  made  out  a  list  of  England's  great  writers  and  artists, 
and  after  some  deliberation  chose  as  the  subject  of  his  first 
interview  no  less  a  celebrity  than  Philip  Jenkins  Drill,  known 
the  world  over  not  only  for  his  novels  and  plays  but  also  for 
his  startling  social  theories  and  speculations  in  science.  This 
man  had  the  ear  of  the  world,  and  into  this  ear,  when  he  was 
not  smacking  it,  he  periodically  sent  down  a  hoarse  whisper, 
full  of  evil  portent,  of  dreadful  prophecy,  which  too  frequently 
had  a  way  of  coming  true.  One  of  his  pet  prognostications 
was  the  destruction  of  the  world  hi  a  war  in  which  the  com- 
batants fight  each  other  by  pressing  buttons.  The  large  public 
read  his  stories  for  amusement,  in  much  the  same  manner 
as  children  read  fairy  tales  or  as  adults  read  ghost  or  detective 
stories.  It  was  an  age  in  which  the  public,  living  comfortable, 
standardised,  banal  lives,  demanded  from  an  author  above 
all  a  thrill,  and  if,  incidentally,  they  got  ideas  with  it,  they 
were  all  the  more  pleased,  since  they  were  flattered  by  the 
implication  of  their  belonging  to  the  intelligentsia,  a  class  pre- 
eminently fashionable  in  its  admirations.  He  had  his  ardent 
following,  however,  among  the  usual  minority  that  takes  an 
author  seriously  even  hi  England.  England  struck  Gombarov 
196 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

as  being  a  strange  country  in  its  attitude  to  abstract  thought. 
The  only  men  apart  from  a  small  circle  of  readers  to  give 
consideration  to  current  ideas  were  the  humourists  of  the  press. 
Here  was  a  limerick  that  went  the  rounds  of  the  press  at  the 
time: 

There  was  a  quill-driver  named  Drill, 
Who  wrote  to  give  high-brows  a  thrill; 

If  you  asked  him  jor  bread, 

He  said:    "Bad  jor  the  head, 
But  here's  an  electrical  pill!" 

Yet  he  was  one  of  the  few  men  who  thought  seriously.  In 
spite  of  his  obsession  with  the  machine  he  undoubtedly  had 
humanity  at  heart.  His  reputation  was  almost  as  great  in 
other  countries  as  hi  his  own.  His  own,  to  be  sure,  intensely 
interested  him,  and  he  was  constantly  manufacturing  explosive 
ideas  to  undermine  complacent  social  institutions.  One  clever 
ironist  of  the  time  pictured  him  as  a  ferret-like  creature,  darting 
in  and  out  of  all  sorts  of  mysterious  corners  and  crevices, 
and  always  nibbling,  nibbling,  at  the  weak,  rotted  places  of 
the  social  foundations  of  the  Empire,  which  he  symbolically 
represented  as  a  huge  Victorian  chair,  standing  somewhat 
awry,  its  springs  bulging.  Another  ironist,  distinguished  for 
his  black  and  white  designs,  drew  Mr.  Drill  as  a  circus  rider 
standing  upon  two  horses,  one  of  which  was  labelled  "Science," 
the  other  "Art."  For  like  other  men  engaged  in  two  conflicting 
mental  activities,  Mr.  Drill  drew  the  fire  of  the  specialists  in 
both.  His  scientific  contemporaries  dubbed  him  poet,  while 
the  poets  contemptuously  referred  to  him  as  scientist.  A  third 
smaller  group,  looking  down  from  Olympian  heights,  asserted 
that  he  was  neither  one  nor  the  other.  Still,  there  was  no 
gainsaying  the  fact  that  no  contemporary  was  more  provoca- 
197 


BABEL 

tive,  none  more  talked  about.  His  work,  "An  Ideal  Country," 
in  particular,  aroused  the  ire  of  the  artistic  clan,  which  saw 
in  the  imaginary  world  the  author  had  created  a  synthesis 
of  all  the  scientific  prejudices  of  the  time,  wrack  and  driftwood 
coming  in  on  the  wave  of  Darwinism,  a  wave  clamorously 
sibilant  with  now  familiar  sounds  and  slogans:  "Natural  selec- 
tion 1"— "Survival  of  the  Fittest"— "Evolution  1"— "Progress!" 
Ruthlessly  the  author  had  cut  away  the  weeds  of  senti- 
mentality, and  with  it  the  red  flower  of  sentiment.  His  "ideal 
country"  was  a  sort  of  a  super-garden-city,  covering  the  planet, 
and  quite  dogless  and  catless,  and  horseless  and  hawkerless: 
only  birds  were  not  excluded,  possibly  because  there  was  no 
way  of  wholly  exterminating  them.  The  inhabitants  of  this 
country  consisted  of  all  sorts  of  progressive  people,  such  as 
scientists,  eugenists  and  teetotalers.  The  chief  basis  of  mar- 
riage was  a  medical  certificate.  "Unnatural  selection!"  was 
the  phrase  one  critic  flung  at  the  author  in  this  connection. 
And  the  people,  indexed,  numbered  and  thumb-marked,  existed 
by  manipulating  electric  switches  and  pressing  buttons,  and 
by  travelling  at  incredible  speed  in  giant  de  luxe  trains,  which 
enabled  everyone  to  see  the  world,  a  world  grown  smaller 
because  of  space-consuming  engines.  One  correspondent 
naively  asked  in  a  letter  to  a  newspaper  how  it  was  possible 
to  see  the  world  while  travelling  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
an  hour.  Another  wanted  to  know  whether  a  world  so  monot- 
onously constructed,  on  principles  so  orderly  and  mechanical 
was  worth  travelling  in,  as  on  reaching  one's  destination  one 
would  come  upon  a  place  in  no  wise  different  from  the  place 
one  started  from.  That,  the  correspondent  argued,  was 
inevitable  in  a  world  country  in  which  nationality  was  abolished 
and  men  became  super-cosmopolitans  or  synthetical  citizens, 
living  synthetical  lives,  speaking  a  synthetical  language, 
198 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

indulging  in  synthetical  habits.  One  irate  artist  wrote:  "If 
this  be  an  ideal  country,  give  me  hell!"  Mr.  Drill  retaliated: 
"Hell,  you  say?  Why,  you  have  that  already!"  And  he 
proceeded  to  point  out  all  the  meannesses,  hatreds,  prejudices, 
injustices,  boredoms  and  banalities  and  all  the  fragmentary 
inconsequences  that  make  up  the  existing  world.  "If  this  be 
not  hell,"  he  concluded,  "I  ask,  in  the  name  of  Beelzebub, 
what  is  it?" 

In  choosing  Drill  as  the  subject  of  his  first  interview,  Gom- 
barov  was  actuated  by  several  motives  apart  from  the  fact 
of  the  author's  international  prominence.  The  chief  of  these 
was  what  Gombarov  called  his  humanistic  attitude.  Drill 
passed  for  a  Socialist-Individualist;  that  is  to  say,  he  advocated 
a  state  in  which  individuals  should  be  given  all  individual 
rights  as  far  as  they  were  compatible  with  the  interests  of 
the  community.  There  was  the  other  fact  of  his  being  a 
self-made  man,  of  his  having  left  school  at  the  same  age  as 
Gombarov.  Surely,  a  man  of  such  wide  sympathies,  a  believer 
in  human  justice,  and  one  who  had  had  to  fight  his  way  to 
his  high  position,  would  be  courteous  and  considerate  to  a 
less  fortunate  individual,  an  appreciator  of  genius,  and  by 
no  means  a  dunce. 

Gombarov  spent  a  whole  morning  in  evolving  a  letter.  It 
was  carefully,  and,  he  thought,  attractively  worded,  calculated 
to  appeal  to  a  generous  mind,  such  as  surely  belonged  to  the 
author  of  "An  Ideal  Country."  After  rewriting  the  letter  six 
or  seven  times  he  posted  it  and  began  to  look  eagerly  forward 
to  an  answer.  Four  days  passed  before  a  card  from  the  great 
man  arrived.  It  requested  Gombarov  to  telephone  at  a  certain 
hour  the  following  day.  This  Gombarov  did.  The  following 
conversation  ensued: 

"Is  that  Mr.  Drill  speaking?" 
199 


BABEL 

"Yes.    Who  is  that?" 

"My  name  is  Gombarov.  You  asked  me  to  ring  you  up 
with  regard  to  the  interview." 

"What  do  you  want  to  know?"  asked  Mr.  Drill  in  a  brusque 
voice,  that  nettled  Gombarov. 

"I  w — want  an  interview." 

"Next  week  I  am  publishing  my  new  novel,  'The  Great 
Drifting/  in  which  I  develop  the  idea  that  marriage  in  modern 
society  is  .  .  ." 

Gombarov  realised  that  Mr.  Drill  was  trying  to  give  him 
an  interview  on  the  telephone. 

"I  am  sorry,"  interrupted  Gombarov,  "but  I  am  afraid 
this  won't  do.  Besides,  the  New  York  Literary  Leader  expects 
me  to  give  a  personal  sketch  of  you  as  well.  .  .  ." 

"Do  you  think  you  can  do  it  hi  fifteen  minutes?" 

"I  can  try!" 

"Where  are  you  now?" 

"Trafalgar  Square  Tube  Station." 

"Take  the  Piccadilly  Tube  and  come  out  here  at  once. 
The  station  is  South  Kensington,  and  my  house  is  only  five 
minutes'  walk  from  the  station." 

Within  less  than  a  half  hour  Gombarov  rang  Mr.  Drill's 
door-bell.  He  was  ushered  into  the  drawing-room,  and  was 
received  by  Mrs.  Drill.  She  motioned  him  to  a  large  chintz- 
draped  arm-chair,  whose  presence  astonished  him  because  of 
Mr.  Drill's  powerful  denunciations  of  Victorian  comfort. 

A  door  leading  to  the  next  room  opened,  and  in  stepped 
Mr.  Drill,  while  Mrs.  Drill,  quietly,  almost  invisibly,  slipped 
out  of  the  room.  The  great  man  came  forward  and  shook 
hands  with  Gombarov.  He  was  a  small  alert  man  of  no 
particular  distinction  either  in  physique  or  dress,  and  only 
his  keen  blue  eyes  gave  any  suggestion  of  the  Drill  one  knew 

200 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

from  the  pages  of  his  books.  Had  Gombarov  met  the  man 
in  a  City  office  or  behind  a  shop-counter  he  would  have  been 
far  less  astonished. 

"What  can  I  do  for  you?"  asked  Mr.  Drill,  motioning 
Gombarov  to  a  seat  beside  him  on  the  lounge. 

Gombarov  felt  crushed  by  the  man's  business-like  tone  and 
manner,  and  Mr.  Drill's  appearance  had  been  a  shock  to  him. 
After  an  awkward  pause,  he  said: 

"I  should  like  to  have  your  opinion  as  to  the  place  of  the 
novel  in  our  civilisation.  ..." 

"That  is  a  large  question,"  said  Mr.  Drill,  smiling  for  the 
first  time.  "I  should  say  that  the  novel  is  the  ideal,  the 
supreme  art-form  of  our  time.  Ours  is  a  diverse,  a  variegated 
civilisation,  and  the  loose,  rambling  form  of  the  novel,  untram- 
melled by  rigid  conventions,  enables  a  writer  to  present  all 
the  facets  of  modern  adventure,  not  excluding  the  great  adven- 
ture of  the  human  mind;  that  is  to  say,  we  are  free  to  deal 
with  ideas,  as  well  as  with  action  and  passions.  .  .  ." 

Gombarov  hastily  noted  down  Mr.  Drill's  words,  and  said: 

"But  that  is  precisely  what  your  critics  have  against  you, 
that  you  put  ideas  into  your  novels." 

"That  is  to  be  expected  from  men  who  still  cling  to  Greek 
and  Latin,  to  dead  languages  and  dead  classics.  They  fail 
to  see  that  our  Odyssey  is  in  the  present  and  lies  precisely 
in  new  discoveries  and  scientific  inventions  and  explorations, 

man's  unceasing  conquest  of  nature.  .  .  ." 

Gombarov  was  about  to  put  in  an  interpellation,  when  Mr. 

ill  suggested: 

"Suppose  you  write  an  interview  with  me,  and  send  it  to 
to  look  over." 

Gombarov,  who  had  not  grasped  Mr.  Drill's  meaning,  looked 


201 


BABEL 

"I  mean,"  explained  the  great  man,  "that  you  invent  the 
interview,  then  send  it  to  me.  If  I  like  it,  I  shall  say  so.  If 
changes  are  necessary,  I  shall  say  so.  If  it  won't  do,  I  shall 
say  so.  My  article  on  'The  Future  of  the  Novel'  in  the 
current  number  of  the  Empire  Review  should  help  you." 

"Very  well,  I  am  willing  to  try,"  replied  Gombarov  to  the 
strange  suggestion,  which  appealed  to  his  sporting  instinct. 

They  rose  from  the  lounge,  and  shook  hands.  Mr.  Drill 
pressed  a  button  near  the  door,  and  a  maid  appeared  to  direct 
the  visitor  out.  Altogether  he  had  spent  seven  minutes  in 
the  great  man's  company. 

He  worked  a  whole  week  on  the  interview,  using  the  brief 
conversation  and  Mr.  Drill's  article  in  the  Empire  Review  as  a 
basis.  The  article  proved  useful,  but  as  it  was  out  of  the  ques- 
tion to  employ  the  same  wording,  he  set  to  work  to  put  some  of 
its  ideas  into  a  conversational  form.  He  was  not,  however, 
content  with  this,  but  wished  to  improve  upon,  add  piquancy 
to,  the  author's  hard,  methodical,  almost  scientific,  expression. 
He  tried  to  give  what  he  considered  a  brilliant  turn  to  Mr. 
Drill's  conversation,  putting  hi  to  his  mouth  picturesque  meta- 
phors and  similes  and  ironical  mots,  the  latter  usually  at  the 
expense  of  Mr.  Drill's  unnamed  enemies.  Unfortunately,  he 
did  not  observe  that  in  improving  on  Mr.  Drill  he  was  elimi- 
nating Mr.  Drill  and  substituting  himself;  he  had  not  then 
suspected  how  deeply  antagonistic  he  was  to  Mr.  Drill  and 
Mr.  Drill's  scientism.  His  own  ideas  were  as  yet  embryonic. 
It  was  all,  however,  very  exciting  intellectual  exercise,  and  he 
enjoyed  it.  One  point  upon  which  he  heartily  agreed  with  the 
author  of  "An  Ideal  Country"  was  the  infectiousness  of 
ideas,  and  the  power  of  ideas,  which  have  been  eternally  the 
inevitable  prelude  to  individual  actions  and  world  events.  He 
stressed  this  point,  and  evolving  out  of  it  his  own  chain  of 
202 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

thoughts,  made  use  of  Mr.  Drill's  lips  to  give  them  utterance. 

Gombarov  was  intensely  pleased  with  the  result.  He  posted 
the  interview  to  Mr.  Drill,  and  expectantly  waited  for  its 
return,  hoping  it  might  be  accompanied  by  an  expression, 
however  brief,  of  Mr.  Drill's  pleasure. 

Mr.  Drill's  reply  arrived  exactly  a  week  after  Gombarov's 
despatch  of  the  manuscript. 

The  first  third  of  the  article,  which  chiefly  dealt  with  the 
interviewer's  personal  impressions  of  the  great  man,  was  passed 
by  Mr.  Drill  without  comment,  save  a  few  slight  corrections, 
but  once  he  came  to  the  interview  he  was  merciless  and  grew 
more  and  more  cruel  as  he  progressed.  He  began  by  crossing 
out  a  word  or  a  line  here  and  there,  then  proceeded  to  annotate 
the  wide  margins  with  blunt  comments,  which  gradually  devel- 
oped into  rudeness,  such  as  "Tommyrot!"— "Tosh!"— "Rub- 
bish!"—"Claptrap!"— "Damnation!"  And  he  ended  with  a 
final  comment,  "DAMN!"  in  large  letters,  underlined. 

That  was  all.  There  was  no  note,  no  invitation  for  Gom- 
barov to  come  for  a  proper  interview.  After  all,  Gombarov 
had  in  one  way  or  another  spent  a  full  fortnight  on  Mr.  Drill. 
Couldn't  he  have  spared  just  a  half  hour  for  the  thing  to  be 
done  properly?  This  imaginary  interview  was  Mr.  Drill's 
suggestion,  not  his. 

He  was  in  no  mood  to  laugh  at  his  intellectual  misadven- 
ture. He  tore  the  manuscript  into  fragments,  and  dropped 
them  into  the  waste-basket.  After  a  half  hour  of  intense 
depression,  he  picked  the  fragments  of  the  torn  manuscript 
from  the  waste-basket  and  put  them  into  an  envelope,  which 
he  sealed  up  and  addressed  to  Mr.  Drill. 

After  his  curious  experience,  he  could  no  longer  regard  Mr. 
Drill's  humanistic,  democratic  doctrines  seriously.  "The  man 
preaches,  but  he  does  not  practice,"  he  concluded.  He  was 
203 


BABEL 

not  blind  to  his  own  shortcomings,  but  he  had  the  passion  for 
truth;  and  some  feeling,  too  deep  for  analysis,  told  him  that 
no  really  great  man  could  have  acted  like  that.  For  many 
weeks  he  made  no  effort  to  interview  a  celebrity.  He  dared 
not  court  another  disillusion. 

MAKER  OF   MASKS 

It  was  not  until  one  afternoon  seven  weeks  afterwards  that 
Gombarov,  strolling  about  aimlessly,  after  paying  a  visit  to 
the  British  Museum,  suddenly  drew  up  before  a  house  in 
Bedford  Square. 

"Why,  this  is  where  Mr.  Sherwood  Saville  lives!"  the 
thought  darted  across  his  consciousness.  "I  wonder  if  I  dare  I " 

Saville 's  name  was  better  known  in  Moscow,  Paris,  Munich, 
Budapest  and  New  York,  than  in  his  native  London.  He  was 
a  maker  of  masks,  and  these  masks  were  of  so  wonderful  a 
quality,  so  full  of  ineffable,  potent  meanings  as  of  glimpsed 
visions  of  some  promised  land,  that  whole  philosophies  and 
commentaries  were  inspired  by  them  throughout  Europe,  the 
chief  aim  of  these  writings  being  to  show  what  these  masks 
concealed,  though  Saville  himself,  in  occasional  essays,  repeat- 
edly insisted  that  they  were  not  intended  to  conceal,  but  to 
reveal.  An  apostle  of  ideal  beauty,  his  utterances  were,  in  the 
main,  directed  against  the  Realists,  of  whom  Drill  was  a 
characteristic  example.  Saville  was  as  violent  in  reacting  from 
the  mechanistic  age  as  Drill  was  wholehearted  in  his  acceptance 
of  it.  In  those  days  Gombarov  vacillated  between  the  two 
opposing  schools  of  thought:  his  hard  realistic  life  forced  him 
to  express  himself  realistically  and  to  lean  towards  Realism 
hi  art,  but  in  ecstatic  moments  and  in  dreams  his  words  and 
visions  took  on  decorative,  abstract  forms.  And  he  never 
ceased  to  be  moved  by  one  deep  hatred,  that  of  machinery. 
204 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

He  had  hated  inventions  and  all  that  went  under  the  name  of 
"Progress"  ever  since  the  days  when  he  had  worked  in  a 
factory,  feeding  the  insatiable  mouth  of  a  machine  with  raw 
wool. 

Gombarov  knew  little  about  Saville's  ideas.  He  had  seen 
but  a  half  dozen  of  his  masks  hi  reproduction,  and  had  read 
but  one  or  two  of  his  essays  without  quite  understanding  them, 
in  spite  of  the  astonishing  simplicity  of  their  language.  And 
he  had  not  yet  got  hold  of  a  copy  of  Saville's  most  famous 
work,  "The  Meaning  of  Masks."  He  realised  how  ill-equipped 
he  was  for  facing  its  author.  Nor  had  he  fully  recovered  from 
the  effects  of  his  failure  with  Mr.  Drill. 

When  he  found  himself  standing  before  Saville's  house,  he 
naturally  paused  to  deliberate  over  his  sudden  impulse  to  ring 
the  bell  and  make  himself  known.  He  felt  nervous  and  per- 
turbed. If  Mr.  Drill,  an  avowed  humanist  and  democrat,  a 
man  who  himself  had  risen  from  humble  beginnings,  and  was 
now  a  pillar  of  light  to  the  new  generation,  could  treat  him 
like  that,  what  had  he  to  expect  from  Mr.  Saville,  who  was 
born  a  gentleman  and  in  his  art  proclaimed  himself  an  aris- 
tocrat? And  he  had  not  even  written  to  him  for  an  appoint- 
ment, nor  brought  a  card  with  him.  It  was  a  rash  proceeding. 

But  he  would  do  it!  And  now  that  his  audacious  self  had 
uttered  its  command,  the  timorous  self  hoped  and  prayed  that 
Mr.  Saville  might  be  out,  or  that  he  might  be  engaged  and 
send  word  arranging  an  appointment  for  another  day.  Gom- 
barov stood  there,  for  some  moments,  on  the  door-step,  one 
finger  on  the  bell-button,  which  he  suddenly  pressed  with  a 
portentousness  that  might  have  done  credit  to  one  of  Drill's 
heroes  despatching  a  populous  planet  into  the  oblivion  of 
destruction.  He  waited.  And  waiting,  he  caught  sight  of  his 
dustry  boots,  frayed  cuffs,  and  creaseless  trousers.  It  was  too 
205 


BABEL 

late  to  withdraw;  he  heard  footsteps  approaching,  and  his  lips 
were  rehearsing  the  words  he  would  put  to  the  maid:  "Is  Mr. 
Saville  in?  Is  Mr.  Saville  in?" 

The  door  opened,  but  instead  of  a  white-capped  maid,  a 
tall,  strange,  handsome  man  appeared  and  looked  questioningly 
and  penetratingly  at  the  visitor. 

"Mr.  Saville?"  asked  Gombarov,  nervously,  and  knew  at 
once  that  he  was  in  the  presence  of  one  who  was  unmistakably 
a  great  man. 

"Come  in!"  said  the  man  in  a  clear,  deep  voice,  and  stood 
courteously  aside  to  let  the  visitor  pass. 

Mr.  Saville  shut  the  door,  while  Gombarov  hastened  to 
explain  the  object  of  his  visit  and  apologised  for  coming 
unannounced . 

"We  can  talk  better  in  my  workshop,"  said  Mr.  Saville, 
leading  the  way  upstairs,  until  they  reached  the  last  landing, 
three  flights  up.  "So  you  are  an  American,"  he  remarked, 
as  he  fumbled  in  his  pocket  for  the  key.  "Americans  have 
been  very  kind  to  me.  They  are  a  go-ahead  people.  My  own 
countrymen  are  in  a  sloth.  Here  am  I,  an  Englishman,  living 
in  my  own  country,  yet  among  all  the  strangers  that  come  to 
see  me  my  countrymen  are  few  and  far  between.  Yesterday 
I  had  a  visitor  from  Argentine,  this  morning  one  from  Vienna, 
tomorrow  I  expect  a  Pole  from  Cracow.  ..." 

They  entered  the  workshop,  a  large  room,  with  an  outlook 
on  the  square.  The  windows  were  high,  so  that  only  the  tops 
of  the  trees  were  visible,  giving  the  effect  of  country  and 
seclusion  and  of  incredible  height  from  the  ground.  It  was  a 
workroom  in  every  sense  of  the  word.  There  was  a  large, 
plain,  substantial  table  hi  the  centre  of  the  room  covered  with 
all  sorts  of  wooden  models  and  hand  tools.  A  smaller,  equally 
substantial  table  by  the  window  was  covered  with  papers  and 
206 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

manuscripts;  evidently  Saville  did  his  writing  here.  The 
warm  ochre  walls  were  covered  with  drawings,  designs,  paint- 
ings and  extraordinary  looking  masks,  all  evidently  made  by 
the  same  hands.  By  the  large  table  stood  a  hand  press,  on 
which  the  artist  made  his  own  wood-cut  prints.  There  seemed 
to  be  nothing  in  the  room  to  obtrude  on  the  artist's  personality. 
Three  or  four  robust  wooden  chairs,  unpolished,  painted  a 
dark  brown,  completed  the  setting,  which  was  wholly  natural 
and  ideal  for  creative  adventure. 

Here,  in  the  presence  of  these  objects  and  of  their  master, 
a  feeling  of  respect  and  humility,  and  of  joy  and  sadness  too, 
seized  Gombarov.  He  was  keenly  aware  of  an  inexplicably 
ultimate  atmosphere,  yet  an  atmosphere  curiously  impersonal 
and  aloof.  It  was  as  if  he  had  seen  the  place,  or  some  place 
resembling  it,  before;  as  if  he  tried  to  recall  something  thai 
he  had  seen  and  quite  forgotten.  Mr.  Saville  noticed  his 
preoccupation  with  the  surroundings,  and  discreetly  observed: 

"Excuse  me  a  moment  while  I  make  a  note,"  and  he  sat 
down  at  the  writing  table  and  began  to  write. 

Gombarov  cast  furtive  glances  at  Mr.  Saville,  noted  his 
distinguished  profile,  his  longish  hair  combed  straight  back 
and  outlining  a  head  of  harmonious  proportions,  his  straight 
sensitive  nose,  his  deep,  wide-placed  blue-grey  eyes,  his  large 
clear-skinned,  clean-shaven  face  and  well-shaped  forehead, 
prominent  just  over  the  eyes,  and  his  firm  neck:  altogether  the 
work  of  a  master-sculptor,  who  evaded  no  difficulty,  left 
nothing  unfinished. 

"A  jolly  room,  isn't  it?"  said  Mr.  Saville,  closing  his  note- 
book and  rising  from  his  chair.  "Do  sit  down!"  And  he 
drew  up  his  own  chair. 

"Not  a  superfluous  thing  in  it!"  said  Gombarov,  with 
enthusiasm. 

207 


BABEL 

"No,  not  one! "  said  his  host.  "To  work  properly,  one  must 
have  no  distracting  objects,  no  unnecessary  chairs  and  furni- 
ture, above  all,  no  banal  works  of  art.  One  must  have  calm, 
nothing  to  make  one  fuss  and  fidget.  As  for  working  in  the 
average  furnished  apartment,  that  is  quite  fatal.  So-called 
inanimate  objects  made  by  human  beings,  have  a  life  of  their 
own,  and  our  modern  world  is  so  full  of  ugly  objects,  whose 
mere  presence  has  a  bad  influence  on  human  minds,  even 
on  those  who  work  in  the  arts.  We  need  a  new  kind  of  Savon- 
arola, who  could  hate  ugliness  as  the  Florentine  Savonarola  is 
said  to  have  hated  beauty.  We  want  some  one  to  make  a  scrap- 
heap  and  a  bonfire  of  what  men  today  call  art,  that  terrible 
abomination  achieved,  I  won't  say  created,  in  the  name  of 
Realisml" 

"Why  do  you  detest  Realism?"  asked  Gombarov.  "It 
seems  to  me  that  there  is  no  reaching  the  great  public  but 
through  Realism." 

"That  is  a  common  fallacy,"  replied  Mr.  Saville.  "Art  is 
auto-suggestive,  hypnotic,  and  so  by  depicting  the  sordidness 
of  life,  sordidly,  the  novelists  and  dramatists  make  the  people 
not  less,  but  more  sordid.  The  cry  nowadays  is,  "Give  the 
public  what  it  wants  1"  but  few  realise  that  the  public  has  been 
hypnotised  by  commerce  into  wanting  what  it  wants.  Give 
the  public  a  certain  kind  of  thing  long  enough,  and  it  will 
want  it  again  and  again,  as  the  drug  fiend  his  cocaine.  The 
spark  of  beauty  that  is  in  nearly  all  men  has  been  smothered, 
but  it  is  there  all  the  time.  Hidden,  waiting  to  come  out.  There 
is  history  to  prove  this.  Look  at  London!  Towards  the  end 
of  the  Sixteenth  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  Seventeenth  Cen- 
tury, it  had,  let  us  say,  between  fifty  and  a  hundred  thousand 
inhabitants,  yet  think  of  its  theatres,  think  of  the  plays  in 
blank  verse.  Thirty  thousand  listened  to  Agathon  reciting  a 
208 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

prize  lyric  poem  at  Athens,  the  same  number  as  would  be 
seen  at  a  cricket  game  today,  and  an  equal  number  saw  a 
play  by  Aeschylus,  or  a  farce  by  Aristophanes.  Consider  how 
recently  Japan,  until  Western  Realism  invaded  it,  was  an 
artistic  nation!  Beauty  was  a  true  religion.  Today  we  are 
agitated  by  problems.  Problems  bring  furrows  and  wrinkles 
to  the  face  of  Art,  and  hence,  also,  to  the  face  of  Man.  No 
longer  is  the  face  lit  up  with  the  glow  of  love,  the  courage 
of  faith,  the  light  of  noble  death.  Everything  is  so  fussy, 
and  fidgety,  and  restless,  and  man  is  strutting  about,  a 
parody  and  a  caricature  of  himself.  The  artists  of  today, 
with  their  insidious  Realism,  are  everywhere  engaged  in  in- 
tensifying the  ridiculousness  of  the  human  figure,  which  has 
become  a  crazy-quilt  and  patchwork  of  problems,  a  thing  of 
absurd  fragments,  like  those  Futurist  paintings.  While,  all 
the  time,  underneath,  buried  and  smothered  under  the  confusion 
of  collected  debris,  lies  the  true  spark,  the  true  soul,  the 
audacious,  child-like,  god-like  spirit  of  man.  Not  the  ridiculous 
problem  man  turned  out  by  the  machine,  but  the  beautiful 
creative  man.  The  picture-maker.  The  table-maker.  The 
garment-maker.  The  harness-maker.  The  poet.  Each  a 
master  in  his  own  world.  Each  a  creator.  Each  taking  a 
pride  in  his  work.  What  a  wonderful  thing  a  man  is,  if  he 
only  knew  it!  What  a  bundle  of  fine  impulses  lurks  in  every 
man!" 

Gombarov  listened  without  putting  a  single  note  on  paper. 
To  have  done  so  might  have  stopped  the  flow  of  fire.  Indeed, 
there  was  a  fire  and  a  glow  in  the  speaker's  strangely  calm 
face.  He  spoke  with  clearness  and  deliberation,  yet  each 
word  was  a  word  of  fire.  It  puzzled  Gombarov.  He  did  not 
dare  to  ask  a  question.  Mr.  Saville  continued: 

"I  think  you  understand.  I  could  not  talk  if  I  felt  that 
209 


BABEL 

you  did  not  understand.  .  .  .  Nowadays  man  has  become  a 
machine.  There  is  but  little  warmth  left  in  him.  And  so 
when  they  talk  of  man's  power,  they  use  the  word  'dynamics.' 
They  speak  in  terms  of  mechanics.  It  is  not  dynamos  we  want 
but  daemons!  If  we  could  only  reawaken  the  daemon  in  man! 
If  we  could  only  arouse  all  his  warmth,  enthusiasm,  inspira- 
tion: the  beautiful  and  the  heroic,  his  laughter,  too!  All 
his  childlikeness,  playfulness,  all  the  rhythm  of  his  body  and 
mind!  Modern  painters  talk  of  the  mechanics  of  the  human 
body,  as  if  man  were  a  thing  of  steel,  working  on  hinges:  cold 
and  bloodless.  .  .  . 

"People  are  puzzled  by  my  masks  .  .  .  and  masks,  by  the 
way,  are  only  a  small  part  of  my  work.  What  are  my  masks, 
after  all?  Everything  has  degenerated,  even  men's  idea  of 
the  mask.  A  mask  is  now  commonly  regarded  as  something 
for  concealing  one's  feelings,  for  duping  people.  Actually, 
a  mask  is  intended  to  reveal  what  is  deepest  and  truest.  I 
am  not  thinking  of  the  individual,  but  of  qualities  in  the 
individual  common  to  the  race.  In  my  masks  I  have  tried 
to  reveal,  to  bring  to  the  surface,  all  that  men  have  forgotten, 
that  noble  spark  I  spoke  of,  that  fine,  audacious  human  soul, 
the  soul  which  at  least  two  great  men  in  our  own  time  have 
seen  and  recognised.  I  mean  Walt  Whitman  and  Nietzsche. 
Nor  does  it  matter  that  one  speaks  of  democracy,  the  other 
of  aristocracy,  which,  at  their  best,  are  one  and  the  same 
thing,  and  meet  even  as  the  East  and  the  West  meet.  Only 
beauty,  a  balanced,  harmonious  existence,  and  a  recognition 
of  this  beauty  hi  men  asserting  their  creative  spirit  can  save 
us  from  disaster.  But  humanity  has  become  like  the  Gadarene 
swine,  possessed  by  an  evil  spirit,  and  dashing  on  to  destruction. 
.  .  .  When  you  do  not  create,  you  destroy.  ...  All  the  nations 
are  arming.  Especially  Germany,  where  the  mechanical  spirit 
2IO 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

is  in  its  apotheosis.  .  .  .  Have  you  seen  that  wonderful  old  gun 
in  the  Museum  at  Florence?" 

"Yes,  I  have  spent  fifteen  minutes  admiring  it,  wondering 
why  men  took  so  much  trouble  to  make  an  instrument  of 
death  beautiful,"  replied  Gombarov. 

"Precisely!  Can't  you  see  that  a  people  that  will  take  so 
much  trouble  to  cover  a  gun  with  such  magnificent  designs 
cannot  possibly  take  an  equal  interest  in  its  death-dealing 
effectiveness.  Well,  a  year  ago,  I  happened  to  be  at  Essen, 
and  saw  part  of  the  plant.  Thousands  upon  thousands  of 
guns  are  being  turned  out  there,  grim,  stark-looking  mechan- 
isms, which  have  but  one  object,  to  kill!  One  day  they  are 
bound  to  go  off.  .  .  ." 

"May  I  see  some  of  your  masks?"  asked  Gombarov. 

Mr.  Saville  led  the  way  to  a  corner  of  the  room, 
the  walls  of  which  were  covered  with  masks,  some  in  varie- 
gated tones,  others  in  red  and  gold,  still  others  in  silver 
and  grey,  a  few  in  monochrome.  Both  sexes  and  all 
ages  were  to  be  seen  here,  beautiful  Mirandas,  pensive 
philosophers,  adorable  boys,  tragic  actors  and  laughing  come- 
dians. 

"What  a  lovely  infant's  head!"  Gombarov  could  not  help 
exclaiming. 

"Oh,  that  one!  Let  me  take  it  down  and  put  it  by  itself. 
To  be  seen  properly,  each  mask  should  be  by  itself."  Mr. 
Saville  took  it  down  and  attached  it  against  a  plain  canvas 
background  in  a  wide  frame. 

"This  infant  surely  had  Aphrodite  for  its  mother,"  said 
Gombarov. 

"We'd  better  not  discuss  the  father,"  laughed  Mr.  Saville. 
"Aphrodite,  as  you  know,  was  not  the  most  faithful  of  wives. 
That  is  the  way  with  beauty,  which  is  the  greatest  wisdom 
211 


BABEL 

and  loves  experiment,  to  perpetuate  itself  in  an  infinite  variety 
of  combinations." 

"Has  this  mask  any  especial  significance?" 

"In  one  sense,  no.  I  have  merely  tried  to  create  a  beautiful 
child,  though,  it  is  true,  I  have  catalogued  it  as  'An  Infant's 
Head  to  be  Kept  in  the  Chamber  of  a  Woman  hi  Pregnancy.' 
Few  realise  the  power  of  auto-suggestion  in  art.  The  bad  art 
hi  suburban  homes  today  helps  to  beget  suburbanites.  After 
all,  there's  nothing  like  implanting  the  spark  of  beauty  while 
the  child  is  yet  in  its  mother's  womb.  And  it's  more  sensible 
to  have  a  thing  like  that  in  a  bedroom  than  the  sort  of  thing 
you  see,  'I  Need  Thee  Every  Hour,'  'God  Give  Me  Strength,' 
'Abide  hi  Me,'  and  what  not." 

Mr.  Saville  laughed  a  child-like  laugh.  "Now  here  is  a 
different  sort  of  mask,"  he  went  on,  as  he  replaced  the  child's 
head  with  that  of  a  youth.  "What  do  you  think  of  that?" 

"I  think,"  said  Gombarov,  slowly,  after  pondering  a  while, 
"that  this  face  is  the  very  soul  of  courage  and  determination. 
If  I  look  at  it  for  some  time,  it  affects  me  strangely.  There  is 
something  infectious,  I  should  say,  hypnotic,  about  it.  I  can 
imagine  having  it  constantly  hi  my  room,  and  growing  to  look 
and  to  feel  like  it.  .  .  ." 

"You  are  clever  to  see  all  that,"  said  Mr.  Saville.  "But 
you  are  quite  right.  I  had  intended  to  pour  into  this  mask 
the  very  essence  of  will.  An  idea  takes  hold  of  a  man,  pos- 
sesses him  utterly.  Such  a  possession  implies  faith,  love — if 
you  like.  They  are  one  and  the  same  thing.  Faith  is  love. 
Faith  is  strength,  courage,  will.  Every  true  work  of  creation 
is  an  act  of  faith.  All  that  I  have  tried  to  put  into  this  mask. 
And  if  it  contains  all  this,  then  it  must  surely  speak  to  others. 
For  love  is  power,  and  seeks  to  perpetuate  itself  through 
others.  .  .  . 

212 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

"Those  are  actors'  masks,"  went  on  Mr.  Saville,  noticing 
that  his  visitor's  eyes  had  strayed  towards  a  group  of  masks, 
somewhat  apart  from  the  others.  "People  today,  seduced  by 
Realism,  object  to  actors  wearing  masks.  Of  course,  the  actors 
themselves  object  to  it.  They  want  to  display  their  personal 
pettinesses  and  individual  idiosyncrasies,  at  the  expense  of  the 
god  in  them,  whom  they  set  at  defiance.  They  want  to  be 
important,  our  actors  and  actresses.  They  want  to  show  how 
changeable  they  can  be,  the  number  of  changing  expressions 
of  which  they  are  capable.  But  they  are  not  capable  of  a  single 
eternal  expression,  which  would  stamp  them  as  gods,  or  as 
instruments  of  the  gods'  will.  A  mask  is  an  arrested  expres- 
sion. And  as  such  it  is  at  the  same  time  an  arresting  expression. 
In  a  play  written  for  masks,  you  would  be  so  fascinated,  so 
held  by  their  single,  inexorable,  changeless  expression,  that 
their  grandeur  would  fix  an  ineradicable  imprint  on  your  mem- 
ory ...  as  of  some  grand  and  impressive  religious  ceremony. 
But  today  we  are  making  the  most  of  our  pettinesses,  we  are 
breaking  up  into  pieces.  .  .  ." 

He  made  a  helpless  gesture,  and  during  the  pause  children's 
footsteps  were  heard  on  the  stairs,  the  door  burst  open,  and 
two  beautiful  children  came  rushing  into  the  room.  One  was 
a  boy  of  about  eight,  the  other  a  girl  of  about  seven. 

"Daddy!"  they  exclaimed  together;  then,  on  seeing 
Gombarov,  stopped  short. 

"Here  is  a  very  nice  man  I  want  you  to  meet,"  said  Mr. 
Saville,  and  they  came  forward  with  outstretched  hands. 
"This  is  Richard  Saville,  and  this  is  Miss  Audrey. 
Now,  children,  run  away  and  tell  mother  to  send  up  tea  for 
two!" 

Gombarov  was  thinking:  "This  man  practices  what  he 
preaches.  He  is  a  kind  of  artistic  Midas,  and  all  that  he 
213 


BABEL 

touches  becomes  beautiful.  What  beautiful  children!  Works 
of  art,  surely!" 

Presently,  the  maid  came  in  with  tea  and  cakes,  and  the 
conversation  became  more  personal.  Mr.  Saville  was  now  the 
interviewer,  Gombarov  the  interviewed.  Gombarov  was  aston- 
ished that  the  great  man  should  take  an  interest  in  his  plans 
and  doings. 

After  tea  Gombarov  rose  to  go,  and  thanked  his  host  pro- 
fusely for  his  kindness. 

"Nonsense!"  laughed  Mr.  Saville.  "Come  round  tomorrow, 
if  you  have  nothing  better  to  do,  and  have  lunch  with  Mrs. 
Saville  and  me." 

"I  should  be  only  too  happy,  but  may  I  make  a  condition?" 
said  Gombarov,  growing  bolder. 

"What  is  it?" 

"That  you  and  Mrs.  Saville  lunch  with  me  the  day  after, 
or  the  first  day  that  you  are  free." 

"Righto!"  said  Mr.  Saville.  "I  have  no  lunch  engagement 
the  day  after  tomorrow." 

Gombarov  left  in  a  state  of  exultation,  and  as  always,  when 
greatly  moved,  paced  the  streets  for  hours. 

GENIUS  AS  MERCHANT 

If  any  one  were  asked  to  name  the  first  six  literary  celebri- 
ties of  London,  there  could  be  no  question  that  Horace  Juniper 
would  be  one  of  the  six.  Some  persons,  indeed,  placed  Juniper 
above  Drill  as  an  artist. 

Juniper  was  not  interested  hi  machines.  But  he  was 
intensely  interested  in  people  who  worked  at  machines.  There 
were  few  idlers  in  the  community  which  populated  Juniper's 
novels.  The  chief  fact  about  his  people  was  that  they  worked. 
They  lived  by  clocks,  they  watched  the  hands  of  clocks,  they 
214 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

obeyed  clocks.  None  of  your  idling  away  of  valuable  hours 
in  some  candle-lit  cellar  or  wretched  attic  over  zakuska  and 
vodka  and  samovars,  in  high-falutin'  talk  on  man,  Christ,  God 
and  devil.  None  of  your  wasting  away  your  hours  in  plotting 
to  kill  some  miserable  old  money-lending  woman,  who  is  after 
all  no  more  than  a  human  louse,  in  order  to  show  yourself  a 
petty  Napoleon  among  petty  men;  then,  after  the  deed  has 
been  done,  to  seek  consolation  in  the  company  of  a  prostitute, 
making  a  goddess  of  her!  None  of  your  morbid  pathology 
about  people  who  didn't  have  sense  enough  to  get  out  of  the 
wet;  who,  if  they  did  have  sense  enough  to  get  out  of  the  wet, 
did  so  only  to  get  into  some  smoky  cafe  or  public  house, 
where  by  turns  they  talked  philosophy  and  grew  maudlin 
with  some  total,  but  not  teetotal,  stranger.  As  for  "getting 
on,"  that  was  their  very  last  thought.  Juniper's  people 
had  sense  enough  to  get  out  of  the  wet  and  stay  out  of 
the  wet,  except  for  the  brief  interval  which  they  spent  in 
going  from  their  little  suburban  homes  to  the  factory  or 
shop  and  back  to  their  little  suburban  homes  again.  Then, 
you  may  be  sure,  they  had  their  umbrellas  with  them. 
Juniper's  were  a  diligent  people,  and  their  one  common  aim 
in  life  was  to  "get  on,"  "carry  on."  They  worked  in  shops 
or  at  machines,  and  kept  their  eyes  on  the  clocks.  That  week 
Mabel  could  afford  the  camisole  she  wanted;  that  week  Harry 
would  have  enough  saved  up  for  an  engagement  ring.  By  the 
time  Mabel  got  her  trousseau  together  and  Harry  had  enough 
money  for  a  wedding  ring,  their  affair  was  ripe  for  a  breach 
of  promise,  and  poor  fickle  Harry  was  faced  with  the  prospect 
of  having  to  pay  damages  or  being  miserable  for  life.  If  he 
was  clever,  he  could  manage  to  escape,  of  course!  And  some 
of  Juniper's  characters  were  decidedly  clever.  They  not  only 
managed  to  escape,  but  to  get  a  rich  girl  in  the  bargain!  The 
215 


BABEL 

admirers  of  Juniper's  books  would  smack  their  lips,  and  say: 
"There's  a  clever  chap!  There's  realism  for  you! " 

There  could  be  no  question  that  Juniper  wrote  brilliantly 
and  convincingly  of  these  things.  His  writings  were,  in  their 
way,  epics  of  the  bourgeoisie.  After  all,  every  author  deals 
with  the  environment  and  material  he  knows  best.  That  he 
should,  in  the  course  of  the  process  of  creation,  unconsciously 
emulate  his  own  heroes,  in  a  greater  or  lesser  degree,  is  one  of 
the  penalties  of  an  artist's  life.  For,  according  to  all  accounts 
and  the  author's  own  confessions,  he  had  solved  the  secret 
of  material  success  in  literature.  Juniper  had  solved  the 
artist's  economic  problem.  Perhaps,  he  himself  had  not 
realised  how  effectually  he  had  solved  it.  He  had  made  a 
heroic  gesture  with  one  or  two  fine  books  he  had  written;  he 
had  shaken  his  fist  in  the  face  of  the  shopkeepers,  then  recon- 
sidered, for  he  saw  a  way  of  conquering  them,  though  it 
involved  turning  shopkeeper  himself.  He  would  become  a 
shopkeeper  of  literature.  He  would  convert  his  brain  into  a 
machine  for  the  turning  out  of  a  variety  of  wares  wanted  by 
publishers  and  editors.  He  would  stand  at  the  counter  and 
attend  to  customers. 

"What  can  I  do  for  you?  ...  A  serial  story?  Certainly. 
When  do  you  want  it?  ...  By  the  end  of  the  month?  I  am 
sorry.  I  have  too  many  orders  in  hand.  The  middle  of  next 
month  is  the  best  I  can  do.  I  can  promise  it,  without  fail.  .  .  . 
All  right,  you  shall  have  it.  ...  Terms?  You  know  my 
terms,  but  I  shall  have  to  charge  overtime,  since  it's  an  express 
order.  Thank  you.  Good  day!" 

"Good  morning,  Mr.  Editor.    What  can  I  do  for  you  this 

morning?  .  .  .  Two   short   stories  .  .  .  five   thousand   words 

each  ....  Yes,  I  just  happen  to  have  two  in  stock.    You 

don't  mind  one  of  them  being  just  a  little  overweight  ...  a 

216 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

little  matter  of  five  hundred  words  or  so?  Yes,  they  are  quite 
fresh.  Only  finished  them  yesterday  ....  Shall  I  have  them 
sent,  or  will  you  take  them  with  you?  .  .  .  Very  well,  you  shall 
have  them  by  the  first  post.  Thank  you.  Good  day ! " 

"Good  morning,  Mr.  Theatrical  Manager.  And  what  can  I 
do  for  you?  ...  A  play  in  three  acts?  And  a  curtain  raiser? 
Certainly.  Who's  the  leading  lady?  ...  Ah,  Miss  Lily  Fair- 
blossom.  .  .  .  Yes,  I  have  her  measure  here  .  .  .  and  I  know 
the  goods  she  likes  .  .  .  plenty  of  emotional  situations,  a 
climax  or  two,  and  a  touch  here  and  there  of  light  comedy 
trimming.  ...  I  have  the  very  thing  in  mind  for  her.  In  a 
day  or  two  I  can  give  you  estimates.  A  big  job,  of  course! 
You  can  have  it  in  six  or  seven  weeks  at  the  earliest.  And 
I'm  afraid  I  must  ask  for  an  advance.  Yes,  it's  been  a  busy 
season  in  all  lines.  .  .  .  You  can  have  the  scenario,  sir,  the 
day  after  tomorrow,  say  at  four  o'clock  sharp.  Thank  you. 
Good  day!" 

In  some  such  series  of  imaginary  colloquies  one  might  con- 
trive to  get  at  the  theory  formulated  in  Juniper's  audacious 
brain,  which  was  a  brain  made  up,  as  it  were,  of  a  number  of 
brains,  each  efficient  in  its  own  way,  and  one  and  all  so  organ- 
ised as  to  be  businesslike  in  a  business  world.  He  was,  however, 
too  consummate  a  craftsman  wholly  to  abandon  the  world  of 
artistic  masterpieces;  and  if  one  may  carry  the  analogy  fur- 
ther, he  was  like  one  of  those  shopkeepers,  not  so  rare  as  may 
be  supposed,  who  keep  one  little  room,  one  little  corner,  at  the 
back  of  their  shop,  inviolate  of  commerce.  Juniper,  too,  it 
may  be  assumed,  had  one  such  little  corner,  where  he  worked 
sometimes  at  the  things  he  liked,  where  he  kept  the  few  things 
he  loved,  his  dreams  and  the  promise  of  all  that  he  might  have 
been  in  a  world  constituted  differently  from  ours. 

Gombarov  could  not  screw  up  his  courage  to  visit  a  man 
217 


BABEL 

who  was  so  obviously  busy,  and  his  several  visits  to  Mr. 
Saville's  house  had  something  to  do  with  his  hesitation.  Here 
he  was  always  welcome  to  a  frugal  meal,  here  he  listened  to  a 
great  man  who  had  surrendered  nothing  to  commerce,  here  he 
whiled  away  some  of  his  time  in  playing  with  the  children. 
His  mind  opened  of  itself  to  Mr.  Saville's  ideas.  .  .  . 

MERCHANT  AS  GENIUS 

The  next  name  on  Gombarov's  list  of  great  men  was  that 
of  Mordecai  Shipton,  celebrated  as  a  shop-keeper  with  an  imag- 
ination, who,  all  were  agreed,  if  he  were  not  a  shop-keeper,  but 
an  author,  would  have  won  renown  equal  to  that  of  Balzac. 

Shipton  had  one  of  the  biggest  emporia  in  London,  and 
if  rumours  were  to  be  believed  he  employed  some  of  the  best 
authors  of  the  day  to  write  his  advertisements.  No  one 
doubted  Shipton's  genius,  not  even  Mr.  Saville.  The  latter 
had  one  day  conceived  the  idea  that  Shipton  was  the  very 
man  to  open  up  a  department  for  his  masks.  "This  man 
Shipton  has  imagination!"  he  said.  So  the  artist  sought  the 
patronage  of  the  Prince  of  Commerce,  who  granted  him  an 
audience.  They  lunched  together,  and  Saville  broached  his 
project  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of  a  boy.  Shipton  was  genial 
and  courteous,  but  could  do  nothing  for  Saville.  He  said  that 
his  shop,  huge  as  it  was,  was  overcrowded,  and  that  the 
women's  underwear  department  was  especially  in  need  of 
expansion.  Some  day  he  hoped  to  build  a  new  wing  and  he 
might  be  willing  then  to  consider  the  masks.  But  the  lunch 
was  good,  and  they  were  charmed  with  one  another. 

An  interview  with  Shipton  presented  some  difficulties. 
What  should  he  interview  him  about?  One  day  he  picked  up 
a  newspaper  and,  glancing  at  the  Shipton  advertisement, 
exclaimed: 

218 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

"The  very  thing!" 

The  advertisement  consisted  of  obiter  dicta  on  Modern 
Business.  After  some  preliminary  remarks  to  the  effect  that 
"business  makes  the  world  go  round"  and  that  "business  is 
no  longer  merely  business,"  it  proceeded  with  some  categorical 
observations: 

BUSINESS   IS 

Knowledge:  Because  no  man  may  do  business  without  a 
knowledge  of  men  and  women,  without  keeping  in  touch  with 
public  opinion,  public  taste,  public  psychology. 

Pleasure:  Because  no  salesman  but  feels  pleasure  in  selling 
things  he  has  confidence  in,  no  customer  but  feels  pleased  in 
getting  full  value  for  his  money. 

The  Golden  Rule:  Because  a  good  business  man  treats  his 
customers  as  he  would  himself  be  treated. 

Faith:  Because  the  honest  business  man  inspires  the  confi- 
dence of  his  customers. 

Kindness:  Because  to  give  employment  is  better  than  to 
give  charity. 

Integrity :  Because  honesty  in  business  is  the  best  policy.  It 
pays  and  sets  a  good  example  to  others. 

Sociability:  Because  without  courtesy  no  business  may  be 
done.  It  teaches  self-control,  tact,  and  inspires  with  a  desire 
to  please. 

Development:  Because  good  business  encourages  the  cus- 
tomer to  come  back ;  that  means  growth,  accumulation. 

Morality:  Because  six  days  a  week  the  business  man  sets  an 
example  to  the  community  in  honesty,  efficiency,  courtesy,  and 
on  the  seventh  he  rests. 

Civilization:  Because  the  true  business  man  is  a  servant  of 
the  community,  encouraging  civic  progress,  comfort,  improve- 
ment of  streets,  the  election  of  men  who  will  work  for  the 
prosperity  of  the  community. 

Patriotism:  Because  a  nation's  honour  rests  on  the  reputa- 
tion of  its  business  men. 

219 


BABEL 

Genius:  Because  all  the  best  men  today  go  into  business. 
They  are  a  nation's  best  asset.  Without  them  Civilisation 
would  fall. 

Gombarov  read  this  panegyric  with  some  astonishment. 
Surely,  the  world  must  have  changed  since  Goethe's  day,  for 
it  was  Goethe  who  said  that  war,  trade  and  piracy  were  on  a 
par.  Ah,  thought  Gombarov,  he  would  beard  the  great 
Shipton  in  his  den,  and  put  the  question  of  the  new  morality 
squarely  to  him.  If  all  that  was  true,  then  something  had 
occurred  in  the  world's  history  but  little  short  of  a  revolution. 
It  would  make  an  exciting,  above  all,  a  provocative  article, 
and  he  might  be  able  to  dispose  of  it  to  some  American  news- 
paper syndicate  for  a  goodly  sum.  He  was  infected  with  the 
prospect  of  making  money. 

One  day  he  screwed  up  sufficient  courage  to  enter 
Shipton's  Emporium,  armed  with  an  introduction  from  Mr. 
Saville.  That  particular  entrance  led  him  through  the  mil- 
linery department,  which  was  full  of  women.  Shyly  he  ran 
the  gauntlet  of  these  women  and  hoped  that  he  would  soon 
strike  a  masculine  department,  or  at  all  events,  a  neuter  one. 
Actually  he  was  jumping  from  the  frying-pan  into  the  fire,  for 
the  next  door  brought  him  to  the  women's  underwear  depart- 
ment, which,  owing  to  a  "sale"  being  in  progress,  was  so  full 
of  women,  that  once  caught  in  the  maelstrom  he  could  neither 
go  ahead  at  more  than  a  snail's  pace  nor  retreat.  The  best 
he  could  do  was  just  to  shuffle  along. 

Whiteness  dominated  the  large  room,  a  riot  of  whiteness,  of 
white  frailty,  dazzling  to  masculine  eyes.  Fluffs,  flounces, 
ruffles,  interspersed  with  coloured  ribbons  and  fragments  of 
lace,  spread  out  on  counters  or  hanging  from  stands,  or  handled 
by  women's  hands;  dummy  female  torsos  attired  in  white 
soft  things  and  dummy  female  legs  in  silk  stockings  with 

220 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

variegated  ribbon  garters  above  the  knees.  If  he  shut  his  eyes, 
it  was  worse.  He  felt  himself  smothered  under  a  mountain  of 
women's  underclothes,  while  all  around  him  was  this  crush  of 
women,  the  penetrating,  overpowering  sense  and  odour  of 
women,  which  streamed  up  his  nostrils  and  made  his  head 
go  round,  and  for  some  unaccountable  reason  evoked  in  his 
mind  the  image  of  Rubens 's  Rape  of  the  Sabines,  at  the 
National  Gallery.  Goodness  alone  knew  why  of  all  pictures 
he  should  have  thought  of  that  one.  But  there  it  was:  he 
thought  of  Rubens's  Rape  of  the  Sabines.  Nor  would  the 
thought  leave  him.  He  emerged  at  last  from  that  extraor- 
dinary room,  or  series  of  rooms,  and  found  himself  in  the 
confectionery  department. 

"Whew!"  he  said  to  himself,  drawing  a  deep  breath;  then 
turned  to  the  shop- walker:  "Where  is  Mr.  Shipton's  office, 
please?" 

"Take  the  lift  at  the  end,  to  the  left,  and  go  to  the  top 
floor.  They'll  direct  you  there." 

He  followed  the  direction  indicated  and  entered  the  lift. 
Once  in  the  lift,  he  felt  he  could  not  see  Mr.  Shipton.  He  was 
too  much  shaken  and  unnerved  from  the  experience  he  had 
just  undergone.  The  lift  was  emptied  of  all  but  himself  by 
the  time  it  reached  the  third  floor,  and  the  lift-man  turned 
to  him  and  asked: 

"What  floor,  sir?" 

"I  don't  know,"  replied  Gombarov,  falteringly.  "I  w-want 
a-a — bird-cage.  ..."  A  bird-cage  was  the  first  thing  he 
could  thing  of.  Why,  precisely,  a  bird-cage?  Here  was  a  rid- 
dle for  the  psychoanalysts. 

"You  are  hi  the  wrong  lift,  sir!"  said  the  lift-man.  "You 
should  have  taken  the  lift  to  the  right,  going  to  the  base- 
ment." 

221 


BABEL 

Gombarov  thought  he  detected  a  sneer  in  the  liftman's 
voice. 

He  found  his  way  out  into  the  street,  and  what  a  breath 
he  took,  deep-drawn  and  full  of  relief!  That  was  unfortunate, 
as  at  that  instant  a  taxi-cab  standing  near  the  kerb  was  emitting 
a  thick  cloud  of  petrol  smoke,  and  Gombarov  got  the  full 
benefit  of  it. 

BACK-TO-NATURE  ADVOCATE 

The  next  great  man  on  Gombarov's  list  was  the  picturesque 
John  Weigh tly,  who  advocated  new  land  laws,  which  would 
make  possible  the  depopulation  of  large  industrial  cities  and 
the  return  to  farm  life.  He  wanted  a  new  Merrie  England, 
with  plenty  of  pubs,  and  wenches  and  swains  dancing  on  the 
green.  He  was  the  enemy  of  all  current  fads,  whether  scien- 
tific, social  or  religious,  and  wrote  amusingly  against  woman 
suffrage,  eugenics,  prohibition,  science  and  "other  contempor- 
ary superstitions."  He  was  for  ancient  guilds  as  against 
Capitalism  and  preached  universal  brotherhood  by  the  door 
of  Catholicism,  over  which  he  inscribed:  "All  hope  abandon, 
ye  who  enter  not  here!"  This  did  not  prevent  him  from 
writing  for  a  Socialist  newspaper,  as  he  ascribed  all  the  hated 
ills  and  fads  not  only  to  irreligion,  but  also  to  the  twin  part- 
nership of  Science  and  Capitalism.  To  Gombarov  he  explained 
his  writing  for  the  Red  Standard  by  the  statement  that  "that 
paper  took  in  all  sorts  of  lunatics!" 

Mr.  Weigh  tly  came  up  from  the  country  to  lunch  with  him 
in  a  Soho  restaurant.  Gombarov  found  some  difficulty  in 
understanding  the  utterances  of  the  Falstaffian  figure  sitting 
opposite  him,  as  Mr.  Weightly  had  a  way  of  filling  his 
mouth  with  food  and  wine  and  talking  and  chuckling 
through  it. 

222 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

He  was  palpably  excited  at  the  mention  of  the  word, 
eugenics.  "This  cult/'  he  exclaimed  indignantly,  "would  in- 
stitute a  tyranny  worse  than  the  tyranny  of  kings,  a  fanaticism 
more  frenzied  than  that  of  any  religion.  Kings,  at  all  events, 
declared  the  principles  on  which  they  conducted  their  tyranny, 
and  when  on  the  rack  of  the  Inquisition  you  could  at  least 
sing  out  when  you  were  converted.  But  no  one  knows  the 
principles  on  which  the  science  of  eugenics  is  conducted,  and 
when  on  the  rack  of  scientific  tyranny  you  are  likely  to  fall 
into  the  grievous  error  of  declaring  your  agreement  with  the 
opinion  which  science  held  last  week." 

"You  can't  be  an  expert  on  normality!  I  should  say,  you 
can  be  thoroughly  ignorant  of  abnormality!"  Mr.  Weightly 
emphasised  this  statement  by  savagely  crushing  a  roll  with  his 
left  hand  against  his  chest.  "This  modern  mania  for  special- 
isation is  in  itself  an  abnormality;  to  be  logical  in  his  mania, 
a  eugenist  must  assume  a  superiority,  must  indeed  develop 
megalomania.  Our  first  parents,  healthy  though  one  must 
assume  them  to  have  been,  experienced  the  first  shock  of 
uncertainty  when  they  gave  birth  to  Cain,  just  as  a  good  many 
sensible  people  must  have  experienced  a  similar  shock  in  giving 
birth  to  a  eugenist.  There  is,  at  all  events,  something  to  be 
said  for  Cam,  who  killed  his  brother  in  the  heat  of  passion; 
but  the  eugenist  would  kill  the  unborn  in  the  absence  of 
passion.  By  cold  calculation,  a  sacrifice  on  the  altar  of 
science.  A  doctor's  conscience  does  not  permit  him  to  put  a 
hopelessly  ill,  dying  man  out  of  his  pain;  yet  a  eugenist's 
lack  of  conscience  would  allow  him  to  put  young  men  and 
women,  with  life  before  them,  out  of  their  joy.  Had  the  laws 
formulated  by  the  eugenists  been  in  force  in  the  past,  Galileo 
and  other  great  benefactors  of  mankind  would  not  have  been 
223 


BABEL 

born,  as  eugenic  laws  would  have  debarred  their  parents  from 
marrying.  A  great  responsibility  devolves  upon  men  who  wish 
that  Keats  and  Stevenson  and  Poe  had  never  been  born.  And 
yet  Keats  got  more  happiness  out  of  his  short  life  than  the 
majority  of  eugenic  doctors  in  ninety-nine  years.  And  Steven- 
son died  at  forty-four,  happy  and  having  made  the  world 
happier. 

"The  worst  of  it  is  that  the  capitalists,  with  their  shibboleth 
of  efficiency,  are,  perhaps  unconsciously,  on  the  side  of  the 
eugenists,  and  they  would  use  eugenist  laws  in  establishing 
a  system  of  servitude.  They  would  send  a  doctor  round  to 
tell  a  woman  that  she  might  marry  Harry  Jones  but  not  Tom 
Jenkins.  Now,  a  woman  may  marry  a  man  who  bets  on  horses 
and  drinks  beer  and  still  be  proud  of  him,  while  the  capitalists 
think  it  a  pity  that  she  has  tied  herself  up  with  a  non-working 
man.  Thus,  the  eugenic  science  would  become  a  capitalist 
measure  against  the  independence  of  the  poor,  and  the  English- 
man's home  would  become  a  dungeon  in  the  rich  man's 
castle.  ..." 

Thus  Mr.  Weightly  went  on,  denouncing  the  mod- 
ernists, and  wound  up  before  parting  with  a  startling  proph- 
ecy: 

"What  of  the  unrest  in  politics  and  literature?  .  .  .  Well, 
it's  not  unlikely  that  a  war  may  come  along  and  settle  hun- 
dreds of  things.  If  war  does  come,  woman  suffrage  will  be 
swallowed  up  as  in  an  earthquake.  When  a  woman  shall  see 
men  go  to  war,  she  will  say:  'I  do  respect  men.  How  fine 
and  brave  and  noble  they  are!'  The  worst  of  this  demanding 
the  vote  is  that  you  somehow  imply  that  everyone  is  happy 
who  has  a  vote.  .  .  ." 

Gombarov  saw  the  apostle  of  Medievalism  into  a  taxi. 
Taxis  were  a  great  weakness  of  Mr.  Weightly's. 
224 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

BRAIN   IN    THE   FOG 

The  same  October  week  that  he  had  his  strange  meeting 
with  Lina  Linter,  Gombarov  had  another  extraordinary  expe- 
rience. It  was  an  evening  of  thick  fog,  and  he  and  Julius 
were  walking  from  Knightsbridge  along  the  railed  barrier  of 
Hyde  Park  towards  Albert  Hall,  where  the  literary  celebrity, 
Mr.  F.  O'Flaherty  Desmond,  was  to  speak  on  The  Crime  of 
Poverty.  He  had  the  reputation  of  being  an  amusing,  para- 
doxical speaker,  who  provoked  many  laughs  on  the  most 
solemn  subjects.  By  a  stroke  of  luck  Julius  had  secured  two 
box  seats. 

The  rail-barrier  of  Hyde  Park  stretched  on  at  their  side 
like  some  eternal  penance.  Little  else  was  visible,  and  there 
appeared  to  be  no  end  to  it,  but  the  penance  was  a 
sweet  torment,  and  it  did  not  matter  if  the  end  did 
not  come.  Voices  and  laughter  came  out  of  the  fog, 
with  edges  as  blurred  as  of  the  shadows  that  darted  past. 
A  'bus  crawled  along  the  kerb,  and  the  conductor 
walked  by  its  side  with  a  lantern  in  his  hand.  Now  the  foliage 
of  a  large  tree  spread  overhead  and  became  an  exquisite  lace 
in  varying  degrees  of  silver  and  grey  tones;  now  an  electric 
light  loomed  just  ahead,  a  large,  luminous  orange,  very  high 
up,  suspended  as  if  it  were  a  planet,  without  visible  support — 
a  strange,  unaccountable  phenomenon,  reappearing  at  inter- 
vals. The  fog,  not  equally  thick,  was  as  a  dark  veil,  worn  in 
places,  and  through  its  rifts  London's  complexion  glowed  and 
her  jewels  dimly  shone,  renewing  her  mystery  and  seductive- 
ness so  irresistible  to  her  unwearying  lovers.  For  who,  once 
having  loved  her,  has  ceased  loving  her?  Who,  once  conscious 
of  her  fascination,  has  been  able  to  free  himself?  Under  this 
dark  veil  the  personality  of  London  was  felt  as  at  no  other 
225 


BABEL 

time.  One  felt  her  closeness,  the  wonder  of  her  past,  the 
hovering  of  the  spirits  of  her  lovers  of  aforetime,  and  she  was 
the  more  lovely  for  having  been  loved  before.  Oh,  London, 
London!  Oh,  old;  oh  young!  Oh,  cruel;  oh,  kind!  Oh, 
ugly;  oh,  beautiful!  Who  are  you?  What  are  you?  Who 
conceived  you?  Who  gave  you  your  name,  with  its  sound  of 
bells,  dinning,  high  and  low? 

But  there,  across  the  way,  what  was  it,  that  tiny 
oasis  of  green  and  red  light,  emerald  and  ruby?  It  was  the 
window  of  a  chemist's  shop.  This  spot,  before  which  muffled 
figures  passed  and  passed,  was  as  beautiful  as  a  dream. 

"That  means  we  have  passed  Albert  Hall!"  said  Julius. 
"Let's  cross  the  street  and  walk  back." 

A  crowd  was  pouring  through  the  entrances  of  the  large 
rotund  structure.  There  were  some  queer  looking  people  to 
be  seen,  obviously  intellectuals,  young  men  with  long  hair, 
young  women  with  short.  There  were  many  pale  faces  in 
the  corridor,  such  as  Gombarov  had  seen  at  a  vegetarian 
restaurant,  faces  with  gleaming,  consumptive  eyes,  which 
refused  to  look  upon  beef  when  it  was  red.  Two  "arty" 
women  wore  curiously  cut  green  frocks  with  Greek  borders; 
their  stockingless  feet  were  shod  in  sandals. 

The  two  friends  soon  found  their  box  in  the  hall.  There 
was  a  rising  and  falling  of  voices,  now  and  then  a  flurry  of 
applause  or  a  stamping  of  feet,  as  the  crowd  near  the  plat- 
form recognised  a  new  arrival  among  the  speakers,  of  whom 
not  so  much  as  a  shadow  was  visible  from  where  Gombarov 
sat.  This  was  due  to  the  hall  being  full  of  fog,  which  hung 
in  clouds,  or  drifted,  thickly,  like  tobacco  smoke,  lit  up  and 
interpenetrated  with  shafts  of  light,  emanating  from  the  lus- 
tres in  the  centre  and  the  arc  lights  circling  the  amphitheatre. 
Groups  of  faces  were  to  be  seen  in  the  immediate  neighbour- 
226 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

hood,  in  the  curve  to  the  right  and  to  the  left,  and  in  the 
balcony  just  overhead;  these  were  blurred  and  veiled,  and 
merged  into  a  vast  texture  of  pale  spots,  quite  indistinguish- 
able in  feature  one  from  the  other,  or  even  man  from  woman. 
Snatches  of  revolutionary  songs  were  heard  from  various  parts 
of  the  immense  hall,  and  staccato  effects  were  supplied  at 
intervals  by  isolated  or  grouped  coughers. 

At  the  sudden  loud  rap  of  an  invisible  mallet  the  great  crowd 
grew  silent.  An  invisible  chairman  introduced  an  invisible 
speaker,  who  was  greeted  with  applause  from  thousands  of 
invisible  auditors.  The  speaker,  a  Socialist,  fired  hard,  explo- 
sive words  through  the  fog,  which  he  likened  to  the  fumes  of 
capitalism  hanging  over  the  people,  choking  them,  smothering 
them,  and  only  waiting  to  be  dispersed  by  a  little  breeze.  That 
breeze  was  socialism.  "If  it  were  only  a  hurricane!"  he  ex- 
claimed, to  the  accompaniment  of  "Hear!  Hear!"  from  the 
audience  and  of  the  coughing  and  cleansing  of  many  throats. 

"Abolish  capitalism,  and  you  abolish  poverty!"  he  went 
on.  "You  have  the  power,  if  you  only  will,  to  generate  the 
breeze,  nay,  the  hurricane,  to  sweep  away  the  fog  of  capital- 
ism. The  chains  that  hold  you  are  but  your  own  sloth.  You 
yourselves  are  that  hurricane,  if  you  only  knew  it!  In  all 
parts  of  the  earth  the  sleeping  winds  are  awakening,  and 
together  they  shall  sweep  the  earth  clear  of  the  fog  and  miasma 
of  the  old  order.  We  Britons  must  join  hands  with  our 
brothers  in  France,  Germany,  Austro-Hungary,  America  and 
Russia.  There  is  no  patriotism,  only  the  International.  We 
shall  scrap  all  armies  and  navies,  and  do  away  with  all  the 
parasites  who  live  on  the  sterile  labour  of  the  thousands  forging 
weapons  of  destruction,  and  the  same  labour  and  the  same 
wealth  shall  go  to  the  making  of  comfortable  homes,  education, 
sanitation,  health.  .  .  ." 

227 


BABEL 

The  fog  in  the  hall  deepened.  The  neighbouring  faces 
became  less  and  less  visible.  Discomfited  throats  continued 
coughing.  The  speaker  went  on,  and  it  seemed  as  if  he  had 
gained  confidence  from  seeing  no  one,  and  was  addressing  his 
speech,  full  of  defiance,  to  the  fog,  to  the  whole  world.  .  .  . 
When  he  sat  down,  the  applause  did  not  come  at  once,  as  no 
one  was  quite  sure  that  he  had  sat  down,  but  when  it  came 
it  was  like  a  dam  bursting.  .  .  . 

Again  a  hard  rap  from  the  mallet,  followed  by  a  silence. 
A  new  speaker  was  introduced,  this  time  a  woman.  .  .  .  The 
soft,  warm  tones  of  a  feminine  voice  came  drifting,  and  it 
seemed  as  if  they  were  further  softened  and  warmed  by 
commingling  with  the  thick,  smoky  air.  There  was  a  caress 
in  that  voice,  and  no  hard  edges.  It  was  seductive  and  rich 
with  the  quality  of  its  owner's  sex,  and  because  of  the  speaker's 
invisibility  it  was  easy  to  imagine  it  as  coming  from  the  other 
side  of  a  screen  or  partition,  from  under  a  coverlet  of  eider- 
down. There  was  a  vibrancy  in  it,  modulated  at  first,  grad- 
ually developing  volume,  rising  to  passion,  with  little  outbursts 
of  hysteria,  normal  to  modern  women,  so  pleasant  to  the  sus- 
ceptible ears  of  modern  men.  Women's  voices  affected 
Gombarov  curiously.  .  .  .  This  one  aroused  his  tenderness, 
unaccountably  awakened  the  male  in  him.  Now  it  came  as  a 
pleading  for  a  lover,  now  as  a  mother  appealing  for  her  little 
ones.  There  was  in  it  a  refined  primitivity.  ...  "What  a 
tigress!  What  a  lover!"  said  Gombarov  to  himself,  and  sud- 
denly became  angry  with  himself  for  not  paying  proper 
attention  to  what  the  lady  had  to  say.  But  that  was  a  way 
with  him:  some  music  and  some  voices  acted  strangely  on 
him.  He  caught  at  sounds,  sounds  had  a  special  meaning  for 
him,  and  what  the  sounds  said  to  him  was  not  always  what 
the  words  said.  Meanwhile  the  voice  rose  and  rose,  grew  more 
228 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

and  more  vibrant,  now  deep,  now  shrill,  overreaching  itself 
now  and  again  on  a  top-note,  which  appeared  to  break  and 
scatter  into  a  series  of  faint  little  shrieks.  As  she  was  reach- 
ing the  crescendo  of  her  speech,  there  was  a  sense  of  effort,  a 
sense  of  panting,  a  sense  of  sudden  rising  to  dizzy  heights, 
then  a  prolonged  note  bordering  on  a  sob,  broken  as  if  its 
utterer  had  swooned  away.  ...  An  intense  silence  of  some 
moments  followed,  then  the  crowd,  held  breathless  by  the 
speaker,  broke  loose  in  a  thunder  of  applause. 

Again  a  sharp  rap  of  the  mallet,  and  the  chairman  was 
"pleased  to  introduce  Mr.  F.  O'Flaherty  Desmond,  who 
needed  no  introduction."  And  sharply,  out  of  the  fog,  there 
came  the  clear,  deliberate,  business-like  tones  of  Mr.  Des- 
mond's voice,  which,  in  contrast  to  the  previous  speaker's, 
was  wholly  dispassionate,  with  a  touch  of  mockery.  A  rapier, 
it  cut  boldly  through  the  fog,  and  its  edge  remained  unsoft- 
ened  and  unblurred.  The  woman's  voice  had  been  in  that  fog 
a  flaming  torch,  flickering,  flaring,  wavering,  it  had  the 
warmth  that  comes  with  the  consummation  of  a  passion.  Mr. 
Desmond's  was  cold  and  electrical,  even  and  balanced,  quite 
ruthless  and  unchanging,  a  searchlight  of  so  much  horse- 
power, incapable  of  increasing  or  decreasing  its  volume  of  light. 
This  voice,  too,  had  its  effect  on  Gombarov,  if  of  a  different 
sort.  It  did  not  appear  to  come  from  a  human  being,  visible 
or  invisible,  but  from  a  brain,  quite  separate  and  detached, 
suspended  in  space  there,  without  visible  support,  like  those 
luminous  electric  oranges  outside,  and  this  suspended  brain 
was  speaking  in  metallic,  cerebral  tones  its  hard  logic,  in  terms 
of  banter  and  irony.  Horace  Walpole's  observation  crossed 
Gombarov's  brain  as  he  listened  to  Desmond's  voice:  "Life 
is  a  comedy  to  those  who  think,  a  tragedy  to  those  who  feel." 

"In  this  fog,"  began  Mr.  Desmond,  "I  feel  as  Jehovah  must 
229 


BABEL 

have  felt  when  he  uttered  his  laws  from  the  smoke  of  Mount 
Sinai.  For  I  warn  you,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  that  like 
Jehovah  I  shall  stand  no  nonsense  from  you.  I  have  caught 
you  dancing  round  the  golden  calf.  But  that  is  not  what  I 
have  against  you.  What  I  have  against  you  is  that  you  haven't 
danced  round  the  golden  calf  quite  enough!  I  should  like 
every  one  present  here  to  possess  a  golden  calf  of  his  own. 
My  quarrel  with  you  is  that  you  are  not  capitalists.  I  should 
like  to  see  every  man  a  capitalist.  It  is  the  duty  of  every 
man  to  be  a  capitalist.  I  am  a  capitalist  myself.  I  want  to 
see  no  man  poor,  as  I  want  to  see  no  man  a  thief  or  a  murderer. 
Poverty  is  the  most  prevalent  crime  of  the  age,  and  it  is  not 
a  whit  less  serious  than  petty  larceny.  Our  system  today 
recognises  that.  A  man  who  steals  a  loaf  of  bread  goes  to  jail, 
but  a  man  who  steals  a  million  pounds  or  so  of  sterling  out  of 
the  pockets  of  his  fellowmen  is  considered  to  be  a  clever  fellow 
and  not  only  is  allowed  to  go  scot  free,  but  is  patted  on  the 
back  for  it  and  allowed  to  have  a  palace,  a  dozen  servants  and 
a  Rolls-Royce.  My  sympathies  are  all,  naturally,  with  the 
idle  rich  as  against  the  pregnant  poor.  Poor  fellows!  You 
can  have  no  idea  what  a  plague  idleness  can  be!  Besides,  the 
poor  devils  must  be  always  thinking  of  finding  jobs  for  you. 
You  will  breed  so!  There  has  been  nothing  like  it  from 
Methuselah  to  Malthus!  There  are  so  many  of  you.  They 
can't  possibly  provide  for  you  all.  ...  I  am  a  capitalist  my- 
self, and  so  I  know.  I  get  my  publishers  to  charge  you  as 
much  as  possible  for  my  books.  I  get  the  theatre  managers 
to  charge  you  as  much  as  possible  for  seats  for  my  plays. 
Now  if  you  were  wise — God  forbid! — you  would,  looking  at  it 
from  your  point  of  view,  nationalise  me.  What  I  mean  is,  you'c 
come  to  me,  and  you'd  say:  'Look  here,  old  duffer.  We  lil 
you,  and  we  adore  your  novels  and  plays.  Shakespeare  can' 
230 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

hold  a  candle  to  you,  and  Moliere  has  to  take  a  back  seat. 
We  don't  hold  that  up  against  you,  your  being  bora  so  clever. 
Still,  we  don't  think  it  right  that  you  should  gather  in  all  our 
shekels.  Tell  you  what  we'll  do.  We'll  build  you  a  theatre. 
We  shall,  of  course,  name  it  after  you.  We  will  also  give 
you  a  house  rent  free,  and  all  the  necessities  of  life,  such  as 
bread  and  ink,  and  we'll  see  that  you  don't  die  hi  the  poor- 
house,  and  that  you  have  a  decent  funeral  with  lots  of  flowers, 
and  a  tombstone  to  say  what  a  splendid  fellow  you  were.  .  .  . 
In  any  case,  it's  an  ultimatum.'  I'd  make  a  wry  face  and  be 
sure  to  sulk  for  a  while.  In  the  end  I  should  have  to  cave  in, 
and  thank  you  with  Chinese  politeness.  And  you?  You'd  be 
getting  my  splendid  productions  practically  for  nothing,  and 
their  cost  being  taken  out  in  taxes,  you'd  have  the  pleasure 
of  not  knowing  that  you  paid  me  anything.  .  .  ." 

In  this  fashion  Desmond  went  on  castigating  his  audience, 
which  judging  from  frequent  laughter  and  applause,  appeared 
to  enjoy  being  flouted.  The  voice  proceeded  to  speak  of  the 
inevitable  with  no  more  emotion  than  that  of  an  oracle.  "You 
are  poor,  ladies  and  gentlemen,"  the  voice  was  saying,  "in 
order  that  armies  and  navies  may  thrive.  Your  work  is  not 
creating  real  capital,  but  anti-capital.  You  are  forging 
weapons  of  destruction.  What  are  weapons  of  destruction  for 
if  not  to  destroy?  Destroy  whom?  Germany?  But  Germany 
is  our  best  customer.  We  are  Germany's  best  customer.  And 
so,  even  if  we  could  destroy  Germany,  we  should  only  be 
destroying  ourselves.  .  .  .  Millions  are  being  spent  hi  all  coun- 
tries for  destruction.  Millions  are  being  paid  for  battleships, 
which  soon  become  obsolete  .  .  .  new  inventions  are  con- 
stantly displacing  the  old  and  for  every  new  weapon  there  is 
invented  a  counter-weapon.  .  .  .  And  one  day,  they  are 
bound  to  go  off.  ...  What  then?  ..." 
231 


BABEL 

Thus  spoke  that  voice  of  the  brain  suspended  in  the  fog, 
coldly,  deliberately,  metallically,  and  when  it  ceased  there  was 
applause.  But  who  ever  heard  of  an  oracle  being  applauded? 
It  was  as  if  they  applauded  their  own  coming  doom,  as  if  it 
were  a  thing  to  be  desired. 

Gombarov  and  Julius  walked  out  into  the  outer  fog,  without 
waiting  to  hear  the  other  speakers. 

"The  most  clear-thinking  man  in  England!"  said  Julius. 
"He  was,  as  you  say,  a  cold  brain  speaking  in  the  fog,  but 
that  fog,  my  boy,  is  an  excellent  symbol  for  England!" 

TOAD-IN-THE-HOLE 

Gombarov  felt  that  his  education  in  the  matter  of  great  men 
was  incomplete  without  meeting  a  real,  live  Royal  Academician. 
He  went  to  see  Sir  Algernon  Pengwynne,  RA. 

Sir  Algernon,  an  old  gentleman  with  white  beard,  dignified 
and  courteous,  a  trifle  solemn,  questioned  Gombarov  about  his 
experiences  in  England,  and  asked  him  what  he  thought  of 
the  Post-Impressionists.  Gombarov  discreetly  observed  that 
he  thought  there  was  a  touch  of  madness  about  them. 

"I  shouldn't  call  it  exactly  a  touch! "  exclaimed  Sir  Algernon. 
"They  are  fit  for  the  lunatic  asylum,  that's  what  I  say!  The 
idea  of  grown-up  people  enjoying  the  benefits  of  civilisation 
wanting  to  paint  like  savages  or  children.  Well,  they've 
certainly  succeeded,  if  that's  what  they  want.  Of  course, 
you've  heard  of  the  joke  played  on  these  moderns  in  Paris! 
Some  wag,  it  appears,  got  a  donkey  to  stick  its  tail  into  a 
pot  of  paint,  then  got  the  donkey  to  work  its  tail  over  a 
canvas.  The  result  was  sent  to  the  Modern  Exhibition— and 
was  accepted!  A  Post-Impressionist  masterpiece!  Ha!  Hal" 

"Yes,  I've  heard  the  donkey  story,  but  won't  you  let  me  see 
some  of  your  work?" 

232 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

"You  won't  mind  it  not  being  painted  by  a  donkey's  tail?" 

They  passed  through  the  library  on  the  way  to  the  studio. 
Here,  in  the  musty  atmosphere  of  books,  Sir  Algernon  paused 
to  expatiate  on  the  value  of  books  and  learning  to  a  great 
painter. 

"I've  designed  the  house  myself,"  he  said.  "And  I've  pur- 
posely put  the  library  here.  I  like  to  think  that  no  man  may 
take  up  the  art  of  painting  without  knowing  something  about 
literature,  especially  the  classics.  I  have  three  thousand 
volumes  here,  and  I've  read  every  one  of  them.  .  .  .  How  can 
one  paint  Nero  fiddling  while  Rome  burned  without  knowing 
something  about  Nero's  history  and  character  and  habits,  and 
something  about  the  current  architecture  and  fashions?  But 
those  donkey  Post-Impressionists  think  they  can  cast  off  all 
civilisation,  paint  how  and  what  they  like  and  call  it  what  they 
like.  They  are  mad!  And  the  world  is  mad!  I  hear  that 
some  people  actually  buy  their  work.  .  .  .  Donkeys!" 

The  artist  led  the  way  into  the  studio,  the  sort  of  studio 
one  would  expect  of  a  Royal  Academician.  The  first  canvas 
to  strike  Gombarov's  eyes  was  a  large,  full  length  portrait  of 
a  handsome  tall  man  in  a  very  gaudy  uniform.  Sprawling 
across  the  top  of  the  canvas,  in  large  Roman  letters,  was: 
"The  Duke  of ,  K.G.,  K.T.,  G.C.M.G.,  G.C.V.O." 

"The  Duke  has  received  another  title  since  I've  painted 
that,  and  I  shall  have  to  do  the  lettering  all  over  again  to  get 
it  in,"  said  the  painter.  "Let  me  show  you  one  of  my  abstract 
subjects,  'Aphrodite  Rising  from  the  Sea'." 

Gombarov  looked  at  the  picture,  which  showed  a  naked, 
obviously  English  girl,  with  flowing  fair  hair,  standing  rather 
shyly,  knee-deep  in  the  sea. 

"I  had  some  difficulty  in  getting  the  model  to  stay  in  the 
water  any  stretch  of  time,"  said  the  artist.  "She  is  a  good 
233 


BABEL 

girl,  but  a  bit  shy  outdoors.    I  believe  in  drawing  from  models. 
Here  is  my  latest  picture,  'The  Afternoon  Call'. " 

Sir  Algernon  pointed  to  a  canvas  on  an  easel  that  showed  a 
Louis  Quatorze  room  and  a  handsomely  attired  gentleman  of 
the  period  bowing  to  a  young  lady,  who  was  sitting  in  a  chair. 

"This  picture,"  said  the  artist,  "will  give  you  some  idea  of 
how  I  work.  I  have  been  at  it  for  some  weeks  now.  Painting 
a  picture  is  not  so  simple  a  thing  as  those  modern  donkeys 
imagine.  Here  are  some  of  my  original  designs.  He  picked 
up  a  pile  of  drawings  from  the  table.  "As  you  see,  I  have 
drawn  the  gentleman  and  the  lady  quite  separately  at  first, 
and  absolutely  naked.  That  was  to  get  my  anatomy  correct. 
It  wasn't  until  I  got  them  just  as  I  wanted  them  that  I  put 
clothes  on  them.  .  .  ." 

Gombarov  could  not  resist  smiling,  but  refrained  from  asking 
the  question  that  was  on  his  lips:  Did  Sir  Algernon  put  their 
clothes  on  piece  by  piece?  .  .  . 

"The  costumes  are  all  historically  correct,"  went  on  the 
painter.  "Now,  look  at  the  picture  on  the  wall.  I  mean  the 
picture  in  the  picture,"  he  added,  as  he  saw  his  visitor's  eyes 
stray  elsewhere.  "It  was  my  original  intention  to  invent  a 
design  to  represent  a  picture  of  the  period,  but  on  second 
thought  it  occurred  to  me  that  I  couldn't  do  better  than  insert 
the  real  thing.  That's  a  picture  by  Watteau.  I  first  copied  it 
in  the  Louvre  full-size.  Then  I  took  it  home  and  painted  a 
copy  in  miniature.  There's  no  use  inventing  when  you  can 
get  the  real  thing,  is  there?  The  original  colours  are  all 
there,  too!  And  now  look  at  the  pattern  of  the  parquet  floor, 
also  of  the  period.  As  you  can  see,  it's  a  simple  enough  pattern, 
but  there's  the  question  of  perspective.  I  have  that  mathe- 
matically correct.  Just  look  at  these!"  and  he  drew  out  a 
number  of  blue  prints  of  meticulous  workmanship. 
234 


BABEL'S  GREAT  MEN 

"Certainly,"  thought  Gombarov,  "if  genius  is  the  art  of 
taking  pains,  this  man  is  a  genius,  but " 

"...  It  was  a  toss-up,"  Sir  Algernon's  voice  was  saying, 
"whether  I  should  be  an  engineer  or  a  painter.  This  perspective 
design  is  a  result  of  my  having  studied  engineering  for  a  while, 
and  I  do  not  regret  it.  It  used  to  be  said  that  a  little  learning 
is  a  dangerous  thing,  and  now  these  young  modern  donkeys 
would  have  it  that  a  lot  of  learning  is  a  dangerous  thing.  .  .  ." 

"What  made  you  take  to  painting?"  asked  Gombarov. 

"Ah,  young  man,  thereby  hangs  a  tale,"  replied  Sir  Algernon, 
his  expression  softening.  "My  little  wife,  God  bless  her, 
decided  that.  She  saw  my  talents,  and  urged  me  on.  That 
was  before  I  married  her.  And  I  never  regretted  it!" 

Gombarov  couldn't  quite  make  out  whether  he  never 
regretted  having  taken  up  painting  or  having  married  his  little 
wife. 

Then  his  host  again  burst  into  abuse  of  modern  painters. 
"Notoriety  seekers,  nothing  else!  .  .  .  They  talk  of  youth 
knocking  on  the  door.  Bah!  I  don't  call  it  knocking,  but 
thumping!  thumping!  thumping!  They  want  to  break  into 
the  Palace  of  Art  with  an  axe!  Thumping  is  what  I  call  it, 
young  man,  thumping,  thumping!  .  .  ." 


235 


CHAPTER  VI:  THUMP!  THUMP!  THUMPI 

"Here's  a  knocking  indeed!  If  a 
man  were  porter  of  hell-gate,  he 
should  have  old  turning  the  key 
.  .  .  Knock,  knock,  knock!  Who's 
there,  i'  the  name  of  Beelzebub? 
.  .  .  Knock,  knock!  Who's  there, 
»'  the  other  devil's  name?  Faith, 
here's  an  equivocator,  that  could 
swear  in  both  the  scales  against 
either  scale;  who  committed  trea- 
son enough  for  God's  sake,  yet 
could  not  equivocate  to  heaven: 
O I  come  in  equivocator  .  .  .  Knock, 
knock,  knock!  .  .  ." 

— MACBETH. 

GHOST-SEEKER 

AFTER  being  admitted  by  Tobias  Bagg's  landlady,  Gombarov 
ascended  two  flights  of  rickety  stairs  and  knocked  on  the  door 
of  the  poet's  wretched  little  room,  and  waited.  There  was 
no  answer,  but  he  could  hear  the  click  of  the  typewriter 
within.  He  knocked  again,  this  time  louder,  which  brought 
forth  the  vigorous  response,  "Come  in!" 

He  entered  and  found  Tobias  in  his  shirt-sleeves.  He  was 
sitting  with  his  back  to  the  door,  his  face  toward  the  window, 
which  looked  out  on  an  old  graveyard.  He  did  not  turn  at 
once,  but  went  on  banging  away  at  the  typewriter.  His  long 
fair  hair,  which  even  in  repose  stood  up  on  end,  swayed  re- 
sponsively  to  the  movement  of  his  fingers,  reminding  one  of 
a  pianist. 

''Hello!"  he  exclaimed,  pausing  suddenly,  as  he  wheeled 
round  in  his  seat.  He  fixed  his  blue  eyes  on  the  visitor  and 
236 


THUMP!  THUMP!  THUMP! 

smiled  mischievously,  while  one  hand  clutched  his  blonde  beard. 
His  hair  stood  up  bristling  and  erect,  and  Gombarov  remem- 
bered that  someone  had  called  him  a  "sun  god." 

"Do  sit  down,  Gombarov,"  said  Bagg  in  a  somewhat  shrill, 
twangy  voice,  unmistakably  American.  "I  was  just  doing  a  two- 
hundred-and-forty-line  poem,  to  show  that  it  can't  be  done! 
That  isn't  to  say  that  it  isn't  better  than  the  long  poems 
being  written  nowadays,  but  if  I  and  Patrick  Raftery,  the  two 
best  poets  writing  English  today,  can't  write  a  decent  long 
poem,  who  can?  The  best  poems,  I  should  say  the  only 
poems,  are  always  short.  Yet  the  old  fogies,  who  represent 
the  Royal  Academy  of  poetry,  go  on  producing  poems  by  the 
yard,  like  merchandise!  You  can  put  that  in  the  article  you 
are  writing  about  me,  if  you  like.  I've  received  my  new  por- 
trait today,  which  you  can  use  with  it.  Here  it  is.  You  can 
see,  I've  had  it  taken  in  my  dressing-gown,  which  is  a  more 
esthetically  satisfying  garment  than  the  banal  bags  we  wear 
today.  That'll  make  the  New  Yorkers  sit  up  and  take  notice, 
what  d'you  think?  And  you  might  put  in  that  I  am  using 
the  royalties  of  my  last  book  of  poems,  Mutatis  mutandis,  in 
having  a  Cubist  necktie  made  to  order  at  the  Cubist  Industries 
Shop.  Am  spending  the  whole  cheque  of  seven  shillings  and 
sixpence  on  it." 

"You  don't  mean  to  say  that,  with  all  your  reputation,  that 
is  all  you  get  for  a  book  of  poems!" 

"That's  only  for  the  second  six  months.  I've  made  as  much 
as  five  pounds  out  of  a  book,  which  contained  the  best  of 
several  months'  work.  But  you  can't  be  a  great  poet  and 
make  money.  If  I  once  began  to  make  money,  I  should  ask 
myself:  'What's  wrong  with  my  work?  In  what  way  have  I 
compromised  with  public  taste?  What  have  I  done  to  gain 
the  praise  of  Phineas  Penwick?' 
237 


BABEL 

"I  say,  Bagg,  and  what's  wrong  with  Penwick?  He  is 
counted  by  some  as  being  England's  best  literary  critic." 

"Everything  is  wrong  with  him!  He  is  dead!  As  a  corpse 
he  may  be  very  beautiful.  As  a  mummy  in  the  British  Museum, 
he'd  look  splendid.  But  the  idea  of  his  pontificating  on  litera- 
ture! He's  got  no  guts!  To  get  a  new  idea  out  of  him  would 
require  nothing  short  of  a  Csesarian  operation,  and  to  get  a 
new  idea  into  his  head  would  be  as  difficult  as  to  walk  through 
the  great  wall  of  China.  In  short,  he's  a  fine  specimen  of 
English  stodge,  the  Royal  Academician  in  literature.  What 
are  you  doing  tonight,  Gombarov?" 

"Oh,  nothing  in  particular!     Why?" 

"Meet  me  at  the  hold  Bella  at  eight.  We  can  have  dinner, 
then  go  along  to  Hugh  Rodd's  place,  close  by.  Some  of  the 
best  of  the  young  poets  will  be  there.  We  intend  to  launch  a 
new  poetic  movement,  and  to  discuss  a  new  periodical,  which 
I  propose  that  we  shall  call  'I'  or  'Myself.'  Our  idea,  you  see, 
is  to  encourage  everyone  to  express  himself  in  his  own  way, 
and  to  discourage  schools  and  academies.  We  will  expose  the 
Art  Trust!  The  periodical  will  be  our  first  bomb  against  the 
old  fogies,  the  art  merchants.  I  shall  put  your  name  on  the 
contributors'  list,  if  you  like.  I  am  afraid  we  shan't  be  able 
to  pay  for  contributions,  not  at  first." 

"Of  course!"  said  Gombarov.  flattered  to  be  counted  among 
the  rebels.  "Funny  you  should  speak  of  it,  for  I've  brought 
a  little  article  along  with  me,  that  I  should  like  you  to  look 
over.  It  happens  to  be  against  the  Academy!" 

While  Bagg  was  reading  the  article,  Gombarov  sat  by 
rather  nervously.  He  regarded  himself  as  a  mere  acolyte  in 
literature,  and  he  was  never  fully  to  recover  from  the  nervous- 
ness he  experienced  in  the  presence  of  another  reading  a 
manuscript  of  his. 

238 


THUMP!  THUMP!  THUMP! 

"The  very  thing!"  he  was  relieved  to  hear  Bagg  say.  "You 
know,  you'll  make  a  fine  art  critic.  But  you'll  have  to  get 
away  from  inversions  and  cliches.  You  have  a  chance  of 
succeeding  Wilfred  Suttle  as  the  best  English  critic.  Suttle, 
unfortunately,  belonged  to  the  'nineties,  when  every  decent 
artist  was  driven  by  society  to  go  to  the  devil.  One  drowned 
himself,  another  shot  himself,  a  third  took  to  drink,  two  others 
to  drugs,  a  sixth  to  the  gutter,  and  so  on.  .  .  .  Yes,  you  have 
a  splendid  sense  of  prose,  much  better  than  my  own.  .  .  ." 

"Do  you  really  think  so?"  asked  Gombarov,  flattered  by 
this  unexpected  praise,  though  it  was  notorious  that  Bagg,  a 
fine  poet,  wrote  atrocious  prose.  Still,  praise  from  Bagg  was 
something  of  a  compliment.  Bagg  was  not  a  man  given  to 
admissions  of  his  own  inferiority.  There  was  this  to  be  said 
for  him:  within  his  limitations,  he  had  a  keen,  critical  mind, 
quick  to  detect  flaws  of  technique. 

Bagg  was  one  of  the  first  of  that  horde  of  Americans,  of 
whom  the  forerunners  were  Henry  James  and  Whistler,  to 
invade  Europe  with  the  purpose  of  acquiring  something  out 
of  the  accumulated  treasure  of  her  culture.  Gombarov  called 
these  the  "ghost-seekers,"  for  it  seemed  to  him  that  they  came 
to  commune  with  old  ghosts,  to  learn  something  in  lands  where 
hovered  the  spirits  of  the  dead  and  the  living  great.  It  was 
something  to  know  that  here  Shakespeare  nursed  his  creative 
dreams,  that  here  Rabelais  let  loose  his  cornucopia  of  world- 
shaking  mirth,  that  here  daemons  still  lived  and  held  forth. 
The  first  American  messengers  never  returned  to  their  native 
land,  but  became  part  and  parcel  of  the  old  soils,  to  which 
they  added  something,  while  their  seed  was  exported  to 
America,  a  curious  Americo-European  quantity.  Those,  like 
Stuart  Merrill  and  Viele-Griffin,  who  went  to  France,  were 
swallowed  up  by  Europe,  and  their  seed  remained  there.  Such 

239 


BABEL 

was  the  strength  of  Europe.  It  was  not  only  Americans  who 
intermingled  with  Europe,  but  the  Europeans  themselves 
intermingled  more  and  more,  the  men  of  one  nation  with  those 
of  another.  Before  James  and  Whistler  and  Conrad,  England 
and  her  arts  had  been,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  English, 
or  produced  by  Englishmen,  but  at  the  time  Gombarov  came  to 
London,  individuals  of  alien  blood  were  making  serious 
depredations  on  the  native  arts,  and,  in  that  sense,  England 
had  ceased  being  insular.  The  plastic  arts,  especially,  were 
beginning  to  lose  their  national  and  local  characteristics.  And 
international  Europe  was  drawing  America  more  and  more 
into  its  intellectual  orbit. 

Tobias  Bagg  was  perhaps  the  first  of  the  American  invaders 
consciously  to  perceive  this  phenomenon.  He  preached  a 
European  culture  for  America,  and  having  made  London  his 
home,  he  extended  a  welcome  to  any  young  American  poet 
who  came  to  the  metropolis,  and  in  spite  of  his  poverty  man- 
aged, somehow,  to  entertain  him  lavishly  to  dinner,  and  to 
introduce  him  to  those  whom  he  considered  "the  most  inter- 
esting people."  In  this  way  he  not  only  did  a  good  turn  to  his 
culture-hunting  countrymen,  but  also  established  his  own 
importance.  He  was  not  without  admirers  in  England,  and 
apart  from  his  friendships  with  such  celebrities  as  the  poet 
Raftery  and  the  poet-critic-novelist,  Rupert  Hunt,  he  had  two 
or  three  English  disciples,  in  whom  he  took  great  pride  and 
who  shared  with  him  his  admirations  and  detestations.  They 
were  united  in  one  common  aim,  which  was  to  break  the  chains 
that  held  poetry  to  old  forms,  and  they  thought  to  restore 
youth  to  poetry  by  returning  to  primitive  rhymeless  forms. 
They  called  themselves  the  Primitivists,  and  though  their  idea 
was  to  write  as  if  no  one  had  written  before  them,  yet  they 
curiously  argued  that  no  one  could  write  good  English  who 
240 


THUMP!  THUMP  I  THUMP! 

was  unacquainted  with  modern  French  masterpieces  in  the 
original. 

Bagg  himself  was  all  art  for  art's  sake,  yet  there  was  a 
Pauline,  a  Salvation  Army,  air  about  him — he  was  a  convert 
maker,  a  drum-beater,  a  blower  of  fanfares,  calling  upon 
young  artists,  especially  Americans,  to  join  his  group  and  be 
saved — from  bad  art!  This  aspect  of  him,  this  tendency  to 
proselytise,  was  possibly  due  to  his  being  a  descendant  of  an 
old  New  England  family,  with  aggressive  Puritanic  traditions, 
though  actually  he  was  born  in  Kansas,  which  doubtless 
accounted  for  his  Yankee  breeziness.  Like  most  intelligent 
Americans  who  had  stayed  some  time  abroad,  he  was  both  a 
product  and  a  reaction  from  forebears  and  environment.  And 
in  England  he  was  more  continental  than  English.  The 
English  critics  received  his  first  little  book  of  poems  with 
enthusiasm  and  prophesied  wonderful  things  for  its  author. 
Actually,  on  the  appearance  of  his  second  book,  they  raised 
a  united  chorus  to  say  that  "the  author  of  Reveille  had  not 
lived  up  to  the  promise  of  his  first  book,  Menestralsie.  .  .  ." 

Bagg  explained  to  Goinbarov  that  "the  English  way  was  to 
pat  a  young  writer  on  the  head  only  to  give  him  afterwards 
a  stout  kick  from  behind.  Their  first  praise  is  like  dressing 
up  a  man  for  his  execution  or  his  funeral.  You  are  bound  to 
write  a  book  one  day,  and  you  will  see! "  He  was  bitter  about 
the  English  attitude  and  harped  on  the  treatment  Whistler 
had  received.  Gombarov  had  the  impression  that  Bagg  re- 
garded himself  as  the  champion  of  good  poetry  in  the  same 
way  that  Whistler  was  the  champion  of  good  painting.  There 
was,  indeed,  a  curious  resemblance  in  their  methods  of  living 
and  working.  Both  had  come  from  a  land  of  few  ghosts,  and 
they  were  defenceless  against  the  army  of  ghosts  which  swooped 
down  on  them  in  lands  of  old  culture,  and  took  easy  posses- 
241 


BABEL 

sion  of  them.  Whistler  had  communed  with  the  ghosts  of 
Velazquez  and  Hokusai,  and  even  with  that  of  Turner,  whom 
he  is  said  to  have  detested,  possibly  for  the  same  reason  that 
Bagg  detested  Whitman,  for  dealing  with  "cosmic  forces,"  for 
not  working  within  prescribed  limitations,  for  letting  his 
material  over-run  his  frames,  break  his  frames.  That  was 
why  Bagg  was  doing  a  two-hundred-and-forty-line  poem,  to 
show  that  it  couldn't  be  done — by  him!  Out  of  Velazquez, 
Hokusai  and  parts  of  Turner,  Whistler,  a  man  less  than  any  of 
these,  had  performed  an  experiment  in  alchemy,  had,  indeed, 
achieved  a  new  combination,  all  his  own.  Bagg  had  com- 
muned with  the  ghosts  of  England,  China,  Spain,  Greece, 
Japan,  France  and  Italy,  but  had  not  achieved  an  equal  syn- 
thesis. He  could  do  a  poem  in  the  style  of  an  old  English 
ballad,  another  in  the  style  of  Meleager,  or  of  Li  Po,  or  of 
Laforgue;  but  though  an  American,  he  could  not  write  a 
poem  that  could  be  called  American.  Like  America  itself,  he 
was  a  combination  of  alien,  unassimilated,  if  sometimes  beau- 
tiful fragments,  striving  to  impenetrate  one  another,  to  fuse 
with  one  another,  and  succeeding  only  here  and  there,  more 
or  less.  But  he  was  unable  to  see  America  from  a  height,  as 
an  incessantly  active  chemical  pattern,  trying  to  stabilise 
itself. 

He  had  a  horror  of  the  word  "cosmic."  But  there  was  no 
getting  around  it:  America  was  cosmic!  It  was  chaos,  a  world 
in  the  making,  a  melting-pot,  an  appearance — if  gazed  at 
from  a  height — like  one  of  Turner's  mad  paintings  of  a  sunrise; 
the  particulars  were  in  the  process  of  melting  in  order  to 
assume  eventually  the  shapes  of  different  particulars.  The 
Americans  in  Europe  were  thinking  of  the  future  of  America 
and  their  idea  was  to  accelerate  the  cooling  processes  by 
throwing  into  the  pot  a  potent  solution  of  older  cultures.  They 
242 


THUMP!  THUMP!  THUMP! 

wanted  to  see  America  "a  finished  product,"  a  gentleman  with 
manners  and  manicured  finger-nails. 

In  the  meantime  some  of  America's  escaping  heat  was 
infecting  Europe.  In  Europe  they  were  sick  of  being  cultured 
gentlemen,  and  the  "barbaric  yawp"  of  Whitman  was  falling 
on  responsive  ears,  especially  in  France,  which  was  of  the 
very  essence  of  Europe,  and  out  of  France  came  the  influence 
of  Whitman  to  Americans  in  England,  just  as  previously,  in 
the  'nineties,  out  of  France  came  the  influence  of  the  American 
Poe  and  gave  rise  to  the  English  Symbolists,  who,  in  their 
turn,  sent  to  America  a  few  spare  crumbs,  which  America 
had  refused  at  the  source.  The  Atlantic  had  become  a  cultural 
billiard  table.  You  struck  a  ball  out  of  America  and  it  shot 
in  a  straight  line  to  France,  went  off  at  an  angle  to  England, 
and  back  to  America.  Europe  was  Europeanising  America, 
America  was  Americanising  Europe.  Like  two  interacting 
chemicals  they  were  dissolving  and  fusing  with  one  another 
in  the  arts  as  in  the  economic  and  social  spheres. 

One  sometimes  wondered  whether  Bagg  was  aware  of  having 
borrowed  a  couple  of  tricks  from  his  spiritual  enemy.  For 
vers  libre  came  to  him  presumably  from  France,  actually  from 
America,  by  way  of  France.  Bagg  preached  revolt  in  poetry, 
but;  then,  Whitman  before  him  had  been  a  rebel,  in  practise. 
Bagg,  who  exercised  an  influence  on  young  American  poets, 
possibly  imagined  himself,  perhaps,  to  be  king  of  the  chess- 
board, but  to  Gombarov  it  seemed  that  the  Spirit  of  the 
Inevitable  was  using  him  as  a  pawn,  an  effective  pawn  to  be 
sure,  but  one  knows  what  happens  to  pawns,  the  best  of  them. 
Bagg,  indeed,  had  come  to  that  point  in  his  career  when  he 
wrote  less  and  less  poetry  and  more  and  more  manifestoes  as  to 
how  poetry  should  be  written.  He  was  making  disciples,  and 
though  his  growing  influence  was  appreciably  felt  among  a 

243 


BABEL 

small  Anglo-American  set  in  England,  it  was  in  America  that 
the  seed  thus  sown  showed  signs  of  fructifying  on  a  large  scale. 

Gombarov  first  met  him  casually  at  Saville's  one  day,  and 
they  rapidly  became  friends.  Nevertheless,  Gombarov  often 
felt  constraint  in  his  presence,  which  was  not  wholly  due 
to  shyness.  There  was  Saville,  the  one  unmistakably  great 
man  among  the  celebrities  he  had  met,  with  whom  he  never 
felt  constraint.  He  could  tell  Saville  anything.  Saville  was  a 
great  artist  and  also  a  great  man:  for  he  created  great  art 
and  at  the  same  time  lived  abundantly.  With  Bagg  it  was 
difficult  to  discuss  anything  but  art  forms.  Bagg's  one  topic 
was  the  technique  of  poetry,  and  Gombarov  found  that,  on 
his  part,  he  could  make  conversation  by  dragging  in  painting, 
of  which  Tobias  knew  little  or  nothing.  In  this  way  they 
learnt  something  from  one  another.  It  was  to  be  said  for 
Bagg  that  he  was  an  eager  listener  to  all  matters  appertaining 
to  the  technique  of  the  arts,  and  was  quick  to  put  to  use  what 
he  had  learnt. 

They  seldom  talked  of  life,  or  of  art's  relation  to  life. 
Whenever  Gombarov  touched  on  the  subject,  he  found  every 
approach  barred.    Bagg,  with  a  superior  air,  hovered  above  it 
all,  as  if  the  matter  were  vulgar  and  did  not  concern  him. 
to  him  was  an  abstract  pattern,  a  sort  of  superior  jig- 
puzzle,  the  arranging  of  words,  colours  or  sounds  in  harmonic 
combinations,  almost  wholly  independent  of  life.    Life  was 
slut,  a  woman  of  easy  virtue,  and  he  had  no  use  for  her. 
truth  was  that  Bagg's  experience  of  life  was  limited,  and 
made  a  virtue  of  his  limitations.     But  Gombarov,  who 
seen  something  of  life,  and  tasted  of  her  bitterness,  could 
get  away  from  the  idea  that  the  roots  of  art  are  in  life, 
in  the  abundance  thereof,  and  that  mere  pattern  making 
never  content  him. 

244 


THUMP!  THUMP!  THUMP! 

This  fundamental  difference  kept  them  fundamentally  apart, 
precluded  any  idea  Bagg  may  have  entertained  of  Gombarov 
becoming  a  disciple,  and  raised  up  that  wall  of  constraint 
between  them. 

Bagg  was  in  good  spirits  when  he  met  Gombarov  at  the 
Isold  Bella.  He  was  dressed  in  a  black  velvet  coat,  a  grey- 
yellow  velours  hat  and  a  purple  flowing  tie,  and  the  buttons  on 
his  coat  were  of  red  glass. 

"Here  is  the  first  shot  of  our  campaign,"  he  said,  handing 
a  letter  to  his  vis-a-vis. 

The  letter  was  addressed  to  Laurence  Winmill,  Georgian 
poet,  and  was  couched  in  the  following  terms: 

"Dear  Sir: — I  have  great  pleasure  in  challenging  you  to 
a  mortal  duel  for  your  incredible  stupidity  in  thinking  Words- 
worth a  poet  and  for  imitating  him.  Yours  faithfully,  Tobias 


"What  do  you  think  of  it?"  said  Bagg.  "That  will  wake 
him  up,  eh?  We  will  take  them  all  by  the  shoulders,  shake 
them,  as  they  snooze  in  their  comfortable  chairs,  and  say  to 
them:  'Wake  up,  England!'" 

Gombarov  smiled,  but  said  nothing.  He  wanted  to  say 
"Don't  you  think,  the  best  way  to  shake  them  up  would  be 
to  write  great  poems?"  He  said  instead:  "Worthy  of 
Whistler!" — an  ambiguous  remark,  sure  to  please  Bagg  more 
than  anything  else  he  could  say. 

Tobias  purred  with  pleasure.  He  was  in  his  way  a  child, 
playful  and  malicious,  and  he  took  as  great  pleasure  in  a  prank 
as  in  writing  a  poem.  If  Gombarov's  supposition  that  he  had 
modelled  his  career  on  Whistler's  was  correct,  to  say  that  he 
had  done  something  "worthy  of  Whistler"  was  to  give  him  the 
moon  itself. 

245 


BABEL 

"Take  a  look  at  these  poems,"  said  Bagg,  "and  tell  me  what 
you  think  of  them.  They  came  by  post  this  morning." 

Gombarov's  eyes,  as  he  opened  the  book,  fell  first  of  all  on 
the  flyleaf,  with  its  inscription:  "To  the  Master,  the  only 
Tobias  Bagg,  humbly,  from  Conrad  Barren." 

Gombarov  smiled  inwardly,  and  turned  to  the  title  page, 
which  read:  "NUPTIALS,  by  C.  Barron,  published  by  the 
Author."  He  turned  over  the  page,  and  there  was  the  dedica- 
tion: "To  all  virgins  waiting  their  hour,  speedily,  lest  the  wine 
turn  into  vinegar."  There  was  an  intriguing  air  about  these 
preliminary  pages,  and  Gombarov  turned  another  page,  to  find 
a  poem  "To  Amaryllis,"  in  which  it  was  related  how  the  Poet 
had  watched  Amaryllis  grow  from  bud  to  blossom,  and  from 
blossom  to  full  bloom,  until  her 

". .  .flower-like  face,  dark-framed  with  wealth  of  hair, 
More  silken  to  the  touch  than  pansy  petals, 
Gazed  softly  out  of  its  eyes,  tormented 
With  the  up-flowing  sap  of  passion,  flooding 
From  the  roots  ..." 

and  how  the  Poet  at  last  took  pity  and  plucked  the  flower, 
much  to  the  lady's  edification  and  his  own  joy.  The  poem 
concluded: 

"And  in  that  hour,  Amaryllis, 
I  uncorked  a  fresh  flask  of  wine, 
To  honour  our  mutual  ecstasy. 
What  if  I  struggled  with  the  cork!  .  .  . 
The  wine  was  good." 

Variations  on  the  theme  were  written  also  "To  Helen,"  "To 
Phyllis,"  "To  Juno,"  and  other  ladies  with  idyllic  names. 

"They  seem  to  be  all  about  free  love,"  observed  Gombarov, 
amused. 

246 


THUMP!  THUMP!  THUMP! 

"The  important  thing  is  that  they  are  in  free  verse,"  said 


"Perhaps  it  is  natural,"  observed  Gombarov,  "that  free  love 
should  find  expression  in  free  verse.  Great  passion,  as  you 
have  said,  cannot  completely  express  itself  within  the  hide- 
bound laws  of  rhyme.  Free  love,  of  course,  implies  the  breaking 
down  or  the  surmounting  of  traditional  laws,  and  such  strength 
of  passion  in  life  often  results,  as  we  know,  in  the  birth  of 
extraordinary  men,  Da  Vinci,  to  mention  one,  who  said,  'I  am 
a  bastard,  and  am  proud  of  it.'  But  both  free  love  and  free 
verse  do  follow  natural,  or,  if  you  like,  fundamental  laws.  .  .  ." 

"Well,  I  never  thought  of  that,"  said  Bagg.  "It's  a  good 
argument  against  conventional  morality,  which  we  know  is 
bad.  There  is  an  idea  for  an  article  in  it.  You  are  not  using 
it  yourself,  are  you?" 

"No.  You  are  welcome  to  it!"  replied  Gombarov,  amused 
that  Bagg  had  taken  him  seriously,  and  wondering  whether 
he  had  given  away  a  good  idea  in  a  jest.  "You  don't  believe 
in  marriage  for  an  artist,  do  you,  Tobias?" 

"Decidedly  no.  A  wife  is  a  coffin  to  an  artist.  You  are  not 
contemplating  attending  your  own  funeral,  are  you?" 

Tobias  grew  thoughtful.  A  suspicion  crossed  Gombarov 's 
mind  that  he  was  having  an  unhappy  love  affair. 

"By  the  way,"  said  Tobias,  "you  may  meet  the  author  of 
these  poems  to-night.  I've  sent  him  a  wire  to  come  to  Rodd's. 
I  think  there's  something  in  the  boy.  It's  well  to  catch  them 
young." 

At  that  moment  a  young  man  entered  and  absent-mindedly 
looked  round  the  room.  Bagg  beckoned  to  him. 

"Sit  down  with  us,  if  you  are  not  expecting  anyone  else," 
said  Bagg. 

"I  don't  mind,"  replied  the  newcomer.  "Sure  I'm  not  in  the 
247 


BABEL 

way?"  He  had  a  gruff,  drawling,  somewhat  arid  voice.  "I 
got  your  note  about  tonight,"  he  added,  as  he  sat  down  at  the 
narrow  end  of  the  table  between  Bagg  and  Gombarov. 

A  PIONEER 

"Roy  Christopher  of  Chiptaw,  Arizona — John  Gombarov  of 
Samovarski,  Russia!"  was  Bagg's  way  of  introducing  them. 
Christopher  looked  curiously  at  Gombarov  out  of  his  grey 
eyes,  which,  three-quarters  hid,  peeped  out  of  their  long, 
narrow  slits.  Apparently,  the  mention  of  Russia  awakened 
something  in  him,  for  a  spark  suddenly  showed  in  his  eyes, 
a  gleam  of  response,  which,  achieving  a  rapid  scrutiny  of 
Gombarov,  at  once  vanished. 

"Do  you  know  Russian?"  he  asked. 

"Yes." 

"Is  it  a  hard  language  to  learn?  I  should  like  to  read  Biely, 
Blok  and  Sologub  in  the  original." 

Gombarov  was  astonished,  for  he  was  better  acquainted 
with  the  Russian  classics  than  with  contemporary  names. 
Christopher,  without  looking  at  his  listeners,  went  on  talking 
about  these  new  writers,  concerning  whom  he  had  gleaned 
various  facts  from  French  and  German  periodicals.  His  eyes 
fixed  in  the  distance,  he  went  on  talking  as  if  he  were  reciting 
a  monologue,  wholly  disregarding  the  waiter  who  had  been 
standing  by  for  some  time  waiting  for  the  order. 

"What  will  you  have  to  eat?"  Bagg  interrupted  him,  and 
even  while,  in  an  undecided  manner,  Christopher  was  examin- 
ing the  menu,  he  now  and  then  looked  up  and  interjected  a 
few  remarks  on  Russian  literature,  which  were  uttered  as  by 
some  reflex  action  in  his  brain. 

"Cotelette  Milanaise,"  he  said  at  last,  gruffly,  and  proceeded 
with  some  observations  on  Biely's  book  on  Symbolism. 
248 


THUMP!  THUMP!  THUMP! 

From  this  he  naturally  diverged  to  the  subject  of  modern 
French  poetry,  its  technique  and  to  an  intricate  exposition  of 
various  vers  librists. 

He  came  down  with  an  avalanche  of  French  names,  some 
of  which,  apparently,  were  foreign  even  to  Bagg,  who  prided 
himself  on  his  knowledge  of  modern  French  poets.  During 
Christopher's  talk  he  now  and  then  noted  down  a  name  new 
to  him. 

Gombarov  felt  sad  not  to  be  able  to  join  hi  with  a  remark, 
as  he  did  not  know  French,  and  the  subject  of  French  poetry 
was  obscure  to  him.  In  his  insufficiency  he  felt  bored.  The 
man's  voice  went  on  monotonously;  it  was  a  dry,  jagged,  un- 
relenting voice,  a  voice  from  the  prairies.  But  he  found  some 
interest  in  watching  the  man  himself,  with  his  lean,  big-boned 
frame,  his  marked,  tortured  face,  high  cheek-bones,  and  high, 
broad  forehead  under  a  few  wisps  of  thin  brown  hair;  above 
all,  those  long,  narrow  eyes,  whose  glittering,  liquid  pupils  slid 
back  and  forward  in  their  slits  like  drops  of  mercury. 

Then,  somehow,  the  monologue  digressed  to  the  subject  of 
ancient  and  modem  painting,  the  arts  of  the  Egyptians  and 
the  Aztecs,  the  Italian  Primitives,  then  to  Cezanne  and  Picasso, 
Van  Gogh,  Matisse  and  Gauguin.  One  remark  found  a  response 
in  Gombarov: 

"The  difference  between  Matisse  and  Gauguin,"  Christopher 
said,  "is  that  one  is  a  rebel  against  modern  civilisation  and  is 
content  to  express  his  revolt  entirely  in  his  art;  the  other  ex- 
pressed it  in  his  life  as  well,  for  he  chucked  his  bourgeois 
family  and  went  to  Tahiti  to  live  like  a  savage.  A  titan,  if 
there  ever  was  one  1" 

Christopher  appeared  to  know  everything.  And  it  all 
poured  out  of  him  in  a  steady  monotonous  flow,  yet  with  a 
sense  of  reluctance,  as  if  the  words  were  being  squeezed  out  of 
249 


BABEL 

him  like  paint  out  of  a  tube.  Only  an  occasional  remark  by 
Bagg  or  Gombarov  interrupted  the  flow.  Gombarov  did  not 
then  know  that  it  was  not  due  to  any  desire  to  display  his 
knowledge,  but  came  from  sheer  nervousness,  and  in  his  ignor- 
ance Gombarov  resented  it. 

Christopher,  in  spite  of  his  tormented,  dour  expression,  had 
an  extremely  boyish  look,  and  it  was  astonishing  to  hear  him 
refer  so  casually  to  the  extent  of  his  travels.  Though  born 
and  bred  in  Arizona  he  had,  after  studying  at  Harvard — an 
experience  he  apparently  regretted — traversed  Mexico,  New 
Mexico,  the  States  of  the  West  and  Southwest,  had  seen  New 
Orleans,  San  Francisco  and  the  Grand  Canyon,  had  been  down 
the  Mississippi,  then  wandered  on  through  Europe,  through 
Spain,  Italy,  Sicily,  France,  Germany,  Belgium  and  Switzer- 
land, and  now  divided  his  time  between  London  and  Paris. 

The  recital  depressed  Gombarov,  because  with  the  bitter- 
ness of  unreasoning  youth  he  realised  his  own  disadvantages, 
the  cramped  narrowness  of  his  life  before  coming  to  London, 
and  his  relative  ignorance.  He  almost  hated  Christopher  for 
the  advantages  he  had  had,  and  the  knowledge  he  possessed. 
For  he  did  not  know  the  bitterness  that  was  Christopher's, 
the  bitterness  that  drove  him  from  place  to  place,  and  gave 
him  no  rest,  and  with  all  his  travelling  made  the  world  such 
a  small  place  for  him.  Envy  and  dissatisfaction  and  bitter- 
ness gnawed  at  Gombarov,  and  in  his  feeling  of  impotence  he 
could  have  wept. 

"You  seem  to  have  travelled  a  great  deal,"  said  Gombarov. 
while  Bagg  was  paying  the  bill. 

"Yes.  I  suppose  it's  hi  the  blood.  My  ancestors  followed 
Daniel  Boone  across  the  American  continent." 

Once  outside,  Christopher  excused  himself  for  a  few  moments 
to  buy  cigarettes,  and  Gombarov  observed: 
250 


THUMP!  THUMP!  THUMP! 

"I  say,  Bagg,  that  man  knows  too  much!" 
"He  is  a  good  poet,  and  we  want  him  with  us,"  said  Bagg. 
It  was  clear  that  Gombarov  and  Christopher  had  no  use  for 
one  another.  The  time  had  not  yet  come  for  recognition. 
Two  souls,  blind  to  one  another,  walking  in  the  darkness, 
they  did  not  know  that  they  sought  one  another.  No  oracle 
was  there  to  tell  them  that  in  the  chaos  and  turmoil  of  great 
events,  five  years  hence,  their  eyes  and  hearts  would  suddenly 
leap  to  one  another,  and,  their  masking  shells  dropping 
away,  would  reveal  one  to  the  other,  two  lonely  souls,  lost 
daemons,  aspiring  towards  the  islanded  hill,  where  dwell  the 
exiled  gods. 

THE  INTUITIONISTS 

In  Soho  Square  the  trio  paused  before  a  large  Georgian 
house,  with  a  broad  arched  doorway,  single-pillared  on  either 
side.  Mrs.  Rodd  admitted  them  and  led  them  up  a  broad, 
curving  stairway,  harmoniously  flowing  banisters  on  the  right, 
high  white  walls  on  the  left. 

The  double  doors  on  the  second  floor  landing  were  open 
and  they  passed  into  the  dining  room.  Here  a  large  table, 
in  the  centre,  was  spread  with  sandwiches  and  cakes;  on  a 
small  table  at  the  side  were  bottles  of  wine,  cherry  brandy, 
whiskey  and  soda.  Through  the  broad  open  door,  a  large 
company  could  be  seen  assembled  in  the  next  room,  broken 
up  in  small  groups,  talking.  They  raised  quite  a  clamor. 
The  newcomers  shook  hands  with  the  host,  Mr.  Rodd,  who, 
sitting  on  a  low  stool,  was  holding  forth  to  a  little  circle  on 
Bergsonism.  He  was  a  big,  brawny  fellow,  with  broad  fea- 
tures, and  his  voice  was  loud  and  aggressive.  He  was  an  art 
critic  who  expounded  modern  art,  hence  a  Bergsonian.  Gom- 
barov noticed  Strogovsky  and  Douglass  among  the  listeners. 
251 


BABEL 

He  had  not  seen  Douglass  since  their  meeting  in  Paris,  months 
ago.  Rodd  addressed  himself  chiefly  to  Strogovsky,  who,  as  a 
neo-Kantian,  was  evidently  disputing  some  of  the  new  doctrines. 
When  everyone  was  seated  again,  Rodd  resumed  where  he  had 
left  off: 

"...  All  art  is  interpenetration.  Men  have  always  sought 
the  absolute,  the  eternal  in  art.  The  old  idea  of  static  eternity 
is  no  longer  tenable.  Only  life,  ceaseless  movement,  continuous 
change,  is  absolute.  Whatever  is  eternal  lives  and  persists  in 
this  unceasing  movement.  We  mourn  the  loss  of  Greek  temples, 
whose  beauty  we  call  eternal,  but  if  the  earth  were  covered 
with  Greek  temples,  you  would  destroy  the  implication  of  new 
creation.  Something  dies,  something  is  born,  every  age,  yes, 
every  moment.  There  is  a  difference  even  between  the  early 
temple  of  Olympus  and  the  Parthenon.  But  the  memory  of 
what  has  died  persists,  and  joining  with  new  perceptions  and 
new  experiences,  gives  rise  to  new  structures  created  out  of  this 
interpenetration.  A  memory  or  a  host  of  memories  and  per- 
ceptions from  the  past  project  themselves  into  a  body  subject 
to  new  perceptions  in  the  present  and  continue  their  way  into 
the  future,  never  for  an  instant  ceasing  to  undergo  the  pro- 
cesses of  creation.  It  is  the  same  in  the  life  of  a  man.  We 
say  that  a  human  body  undergoes  a  periodical  chemical  trans- 
formation until  not  a  single  original  cell  remains;  such  is  the 
transformation  that  goes  on  continuously  in  the  whole  creative 
world,  which  is  an  unceasing  becoming  through  both  inner 
action  and  new  contacts,  combined  with  the  resistances  of  old 
but  by  no  means  dead  bodies.  Artists  have  always  passed 
through  such  processes. 

There  is  Whistler.  Memories  of  Velazquez  and  Hokusai  lurk 
in  his  art,  but  his  new  experiences  and  perceptions,  his  contacts 
with  the  French  Impressionists  and  London  have  caused  his  art 
252 


THUMP!  THUMP  I  THUMP! 

to  evolve  into  what  seems  to  be  a  new  and  original  mould,  which 
is  really  a  creative  projection  of  his  personality:  the  sum  total 
of  all  his  hereditary  and  living  memories  and  his  perceptions 
and  experiences.  Nothing  is  lost  here.  The  artist's  personality, 
through  infinite  combinations  and  interpenetrations,  has  evolved 
into  a  will,  and  his  art  is  an  expression  of  this  will,  which 
discards  what  it  cannot  use  and  takes  what  it  must . .  .  imagine 
to  yourself  a  world  in  which  things  are  made  up  of  infinitesimal 
fragments  that  continuously  fall  apart  and  as  continuously 
come  together  in  a  new  form.  .  .  . 

"But  if  these  processes  are  slow  and  continuous,  there  are 
intense  moments  and  epochs — and  epochs  are  but  moments — 
in  the  life  of  humanity,  of  individuals  as  well  as  nations,  which 
may  be  called  moments  of  intuition,  when  great  truths  pre- 
sent themselves  in  culminating  points,  as  in  flashes  of  light- 
ning, and  great  actions  and  renaissances — yes,  even  catastro- 
phes— take  place,  and  these  bear  witness  to  the  Bergsonian 
truth.  We  have  suddenly  become  conscious  of  the  meaning  of 
life,  continuous  becoming,  which  explains  both  life  and  death, 
really  the  same  thing,  and  with  this  consciousness  the  creative 
process  is  accelerated,  and  we  boldly  project  our  impetuous 
forces  against  the  resisting  yet  relatively  dead  bodies,  such  as 
Royal  Academies  of  all  sorts,  and  all  deadish  tendencies  that 
bar  the  way  to  our  upward,  precipitate  flight.  .  .  ." 

It  was  obvious  that  Rodd  would  have  gone  on,  if  it  had  not 
been  that  Bagg,  who  had  heard  it  all  before,  unfolded  a  letter 
and  thrust  it  under  Rodd's  very  nose.  Rodd,  glancing  at  the 
letter,  burst  into  a  long,  loud  guffaw,  and  passed  the  letter  to 
his  neighbour. 

It  was  Bagg's  challenge  to  Winmill.  The  whole  room  was 
soon  rocking  with  laughter.  Gombarov's  eyes  suddenly  fell 
upon  a  painting  on  the  wall,  showing  a  group  of  pregnant, 

253 


BABEL 

laughing  women  dancing  in  one  sweeping  circle,  painted  by  an 
English  follower  of  Matisse,  and  it  struck  him  that  there  was 
something  in  common  between  the  expressions  of  the  faces  in 
the  picture  and  the  living  laughing  faces  in  the  room.  The 
room  shook  with  fecund  laughter.  On  its  subsiding,  there  was 
a  general  movement  towards  the  dining  room,  towards  the 
sandwiches  and  the  whiskey  and  soda.  A  few  remained  behind, 
chiefly  the  women.  Gombarov  took  advantage  of  the  relative 
emptiness  of  the  room  to  examine  the  pictures. 

The  room,  large  and  high,  with  three  long  windows  leading 
to  a  balcony,  combined  harmony  and  comfort.  It  was  a 
characteristic  example  of  the  best  Georgian  architecture.  The 
furniture,  too,  was  for  the  most  part  old  and  solid.  Old 
miniatures  and  silhouette  portraits  hung  over  the  mantel,  but 
these  modest  specimens  and  gew-gaws  were  lost  against  the 
modern  paintings  hung  round  the  walls,  pictures  full  of  strident 
movement  and  violent  contrasts  of  colour.  The  room  being 
but  dimly  lighted  with  candles,  the  flare  from  the  fire  on  the 
broad  hearth  gave  even  a  greater  sense  of  animation  to  the 
pictures,  especially  to  the  picture  in  the  centre  of  the  left  wall, 
showing  a  mechanical  contrivance  painted  in  a  series  of  hard- 
edged  strips  of  bright  colour,  which,  as  the  active  light  jumped 
across  them  and  pranced  and  wavered,  gave  the  illusion  of  a 
kaleidoscopic  dance  of  steel  girders.  The  inscription  under- 
neath read:  War  in  the  Air.  At  one  instant  the  old  walls 
seemed  themselves  to  totter  and  waver  under  the  play  of  lights 
on  the  fantastic  pictures. 

Another    picture    that    attracted    Gombarov    was    called 

Friedrichsbanhoj,  Berlin.    It  showed  a  perfectly  intact  engine, 

a  monster  in  size,  entering  a  station,  and  the  houses  on  either 

side  were  tottering,  and  some  were  in  a  state  of  collapse,  a  mass 

254 


THUMP!  THUMP!  THUMP! 

of  debris.  There  was  English  lettering  on  the  side  of  the 
engine,  and  that  was  strange.  Why  should  an  English  engine 
enter  a  Berlin  station,  why  all  this  debris,  why  should  the 
buildings  totter?  And  if  you  but  half  closed  your  eye,  you 
saw  something  else,  the  curiously  phallic  construction  of  the 
engine,  and  you  gathered  the  impression  that,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  the  artist,  doubtless,  so  intended  it.  Man  was 
returning  to  primitive,  to  sexual  symbols  in  art,  and  Nature 
the  unconquerable  was  not  above  using  for  her  own  ends  the 
mechanisms  with  which  man  has  proudly  presumed  to  have 
conquered  her.  All  this  flashed  across  Gombarov's  brain  in 
a  single  instant.  A  Bergsonian  intuition,  Rodd  would  have 
called  it. 

A  little  statuette,  hewed  out  of  granite,  which  stood  on  a 
writing  desk,  next  attracted  his  attention.  It  was  the  figure  of 
a  pregnant  negress,  and  she  stood  in  an  attitude  of  torment, 
curved  almost  into  a  question  mark,  her  two  hands  on  her 
stomach.  It  bore  the  inscription,  The  Fecund  Earth.  It  was 
by  the  Jewish  sculptor,  Daniel  Gordin.  There  was  an  extra- 
ordinary potency  in  it  for  so  small  a  piece  of  stone.  Hardly 
more  than  fifteen  inches  high,  it  yet  gave  an  illusion  of  big- 
ness; decorative,  it  was  yet  deliberately  crude;  a  thing  fraught 
with  elemental  forces,  wrought  by  them  from  within  and 
without;  it  was  as  a  mountain  in  travail  giving  birth  to  new 
life.  Gorbarov  half  closed  his  eyes  and  imagined  it  as  a 
colossus  in  an  African  desert,  the  size  of  the  Sphinx  of  Ghiza, 
a  host  of  awed  worshippers  bowed  down  before  the  mystery 
of  creation. 

"Mr.  Gombarov,  will  you  have  a  whiskey  and  soda?"  he 
heard  Rodd's  voice,  and  his  host  handed  him  a  glass.  "A 
fine  thing,  isn't  it?" 

"Do  you  work  in  this  room,  at  this  desk?"  asked  Gombarov. 

255 


BABEL 

"Yes.    Why?" 

"Don't  you  find  your  works  of  art  rather  disturbing?" 
"Of  course! "  said  Rodd,  laughing.    "That's  why  I  work  here. 
I  want  to  be  disturbed.    I  am  a  critic  of  dynamic  arts,  and 
I  must  have  dynamic  works  of  art  around  me  to  stir  me  to 
dynamic  thinking." 

DEMIGODS  IN  EXILE 

They  were  joined  by  a  young  couple,  who  also  stood  regard- 
ing the  statue. 

"Do  you  know  each  other?"  asked  Rodd.  "No.  .  .  .  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Hector  Cowley,  otherwise  known  as  Heracles  and 
Hylas,  because  of  the  Greekishness  of  their  poetry — Mr. 
Gombarov!" 

Mrs.  Cowley — Hylas — gave  him  the  deciduous  hand  of  a 
Henry  James  heroine,  and  Heracles  followed  with  a  more 
hearty  handshake. 

"That  is  not  to  say,"  explained  Rodd,  "that  there  is  any- 
thing pseudo-classic  about  their  work,  but  they  have  Greek 
memories  and  quite  up-to-date  perceptions.  In  fact,  Mrs. 
Cowley  is  a  countrywoman  of  yours,  a  Yank  like  yourself." 
And  laughing,  Rodd  left  Gombarov  to  his  new  acquaintances. 

"I've  heard  of  you,"  said  Hylas,  "from  Toby,  that  is,  from 
Mr.  Bagg.  I  believe  we  both  come  from  the  same  city,  the 
City  of  Brotherly  Love!" 

"Yes,  it's  a  good  city  to  come  from,"  said  Gombarov  signifi- 
cantly. 

Hylas  burst  into  a  nervous  laugh.  "That's  delicious,  Mr. 
Gombarov!  'A  good  city  to  come  from!'  Why,  Hector  won't 
believe  half  I  tell  him  about  our  city.  You  are  not  exactly 
a  native,  are  you?  A  Russian,  I  believe.  But  I  had  the 
great  misfortune  of  being  born  there.  .  .  ." 

256 


THUMP!  THUMP!  THUMP! 

"You  Yanks  amuse  me,"  said  Heracles.  "I've  yet  to  meet 
a  writing  chap  or  artist  from  the  States  who  has  anything  good 
to  say  for  Gawd's  own  country." 

"Now,  Hector,"  said  Hylas,  holding  up  a  playful  finger, 
"you  know  that  you'd  rather  be  a  Frenchman!  Yet  Hector 
is  an  Englishman  from  way  back.  His  family  tree  would 
make  the  best  families  in  Philadelphia  green  with  envy.  I 
am  urging  Hector  to  take  a  journey  to  America.  It  would 
be  an  amusing  experience,  don't  you  think?" 

"Decidedly,"  rejoined  Gombarov.  "I  dare  say,  he'd  get  all 
sorts  of  invitations  to  read  his  poems  before  the  women's  clubs, 
the  Browning  Societies,  the  Daughters  of  the  American  Revo- 
lution, the  anti-Saloon-Leaguers  .  .  ." 

"There,  Hector!"  said  Hylas.  "What  did  I  tell  you? 
You'd.  .  .  ." 

"I  say,  sure,  lid  be  the  main  cheese,  the  only  smell  going!" 
said  Hector,  breaking  out  into  Americanisms  and  badly  imitat- 
ing the  twang.  "I'ld  be  the  only  pebble  on  the  beach.  lid  have 
a  real  peach  of  a  journey,  and  some  peacherinos,  sure,  would 
come  to  listen  to  me.  Brass  bands  and  bouquets  everywhere, 
eh,  kiddo?  And  some  real  nice  skirts  would  fall  for 
me.  .  .  ." 

"Don't,  Hector!"    Hylas  burst  into  her  hysterical  laugh. 

"You  must  come  and  see  us,"  said  Hylas,  as  the  company 
began  to  return  after  refreshment.  She  drew  a  card  out  of  her 
bag.  "Come  next  Thursday,  if  you  like.  Do  come!" 

Gombarov  watched  Hylas's  tall,  languid  figure  trail  off  on 

Heracles's  arm.    She  was  as  tall  as  he,  and  his  broad  form 

accentuated  her  height  and  slenderness.    Altogether  a  Botticel- 

lian  figure.    She  had  a  small  head,  too  small  for  so  tall  a  body. 

257 


BABEL 

Its  smooth  brown  hair,  terminating  in  a  Grecian  knot,  fitted 
it  closely  and  revealed  its  exquisite  shape.  Her  face  was  like 
a  Greek  marble,  except  for  one  flaw,  the  nose,  whose  tip 
seemed  slightly  chipped  off  as  if  by  accident,  so  that  the  effect 
was  that  of  a  museum  marble.  Her  eyes  were  a  sea-grey,  as 
became  a  poetess,  a  devotee  of  Glaukopis  Athene. 

Heracles's  face  was  that  of  a  broad-faced,  small-nosed  satyr, 
"lacking  just  two  budding  horns  and  vine  leaves  in  the  hair," 
as  Tobias  had  once  put  it  in  a  bantering  mood.  As  if  he 
were  actually  supplied  with  these  satyric  appurtenances,  he 
never  wore  a  hat  but  allowed  his  longish,  fair,  straight  hair 
to  hang  about  his  head  in  wisps.  Tobias  claimed  him  for  his 
disciple,  and  Tobias  was  a  man  to  learn  something  from  his 
disciples.  Heracles  himself  used  to  declare  that  his  wife  was 
the  greatest  poet  of  the  age,  Sappho  herself  come  to  life,  and 
confessed  that  he  owed  his  poetic  stimulus  wholly  to  her.  She 
was  some  years  older  than  he,  and  their  apparent  happiness 
was  a  thing  Gombarov  had  dreamt  of. 

Gombarov  saw  Hylas  and  Heracles  walk  away,  and  sadness 
gnawing  at  his  heart,  he  thought  of  Winifred.  Of  the  pair 
Gombarov  preferred  Hylas.  She  was  a  woman  and  there  was 
an  intriguing  air  about  her,  and  she  was  friendly,  and  he  was 
famished  for  the  mere  presence  of  woman.  As  for  Heracles, 
in  spite  of  his  joviality  at  the  moment,  there  was  a  lurking 
moodiness  about  him  and  a  sense  of  English  reserve;  one  felt 
oneself  before  a  closed  gate  flaunting  a  "no  trespassing"  sign. 
He  had  heard  of  both  of  them  from  Tobias  and  had  read  some 
of  their  poems,  which  appeared  for  the  most  part  in  the  more 
precious  American  periodicals. 


258 


THUMP!  THUMP!  THUMP! 

LEAGUE  AGAINST  AGE 

Of  the  several  Primitivists  in  the  room  there  were  as  many 
Englishmen  as  Americans.  The  movement  had  its  impetus 
in  America,  by  way  of  France.  The  Americans  gave  vers  libre, 
the  French  precision.  Poetry  was  laid  on  the  table,  operated 
upon,  and  had  its  "cosmos"  removed,  like  some  useless  appen- 
dix. Sentimentality,  rhetoric,  vagueness  and  cliches  went 
along  with  it.  Words  were  reshuffled,  revalued;  adjectives, 
except  essentially  descriptive  ones,  were  discarded  as  so  much 
dead  matter;  hardness,  concreteness  and  precision  were 
required.  Rhythm  and  cadence  were  to  displace  rhyme,  and 
integral  patterns  were  placed  above  subject-matter.  The  new 
poetic  efforts  were  received  with  abuse  and  ridicule  in  the 
press,  which  delighted  the  rebels. 

Young,  confident  and  militant  were  the  rebels  gathered  at 
Rodd's,  especially  the  Americans.  "There  is  Tobias  Bagg," 
reflected  Gombarov,  "a  broncho-buster,  if  there  ever  was  one, 
let  loose  in  the  culture  pastures  of  Europe,  lassoing  every  kind 
of  Pegasus  that  happens  to  strike  his  fancy,  and  breaking  it 
in  to  serve  his  uses.  .  .  .  There  is  Hylas,  searching  for  live 
Greek  fragments,  just  as  another  American,  Isadora  Duncan, 
has  hunted  among  the  Greek  tombs  and  vases  to  rekindle  in 
Europe  and  America  the  ancient  flame  of  dancing.  There  is 
Roy  Christopher,  following  the  old  culture  trails  of  Europe 
to  find  new  life,  a  quest  as  intrepid  as  the  one  in  which  his 
forefathers  had  followed  Daniel  Boone;  but  unlike  theirs  his 
has  no  end.  For  him  no  sea  is  a  boundary,  but  only  a  start- 
ing point  for  a  new  journey.  And  here  am  I,  not  a  native 
American,  still  an  American,  and  here  am  I  wandering,  seeking, 
groping,  as  in  some  foggy  hell,  God  knows  where.  How  eager 
259 


BABEL 

they  all  are,  these  Americans,  myself,  too,  in  this  old  country; 
but  the  natives  seem  by  comparison  tired,  listless,  quiet,  perfect 
gentlemen.  To  them  Europe  seems  to  be  a  grave,  to  the 
young  barbarians  a  cradle." 

Or  was  it,  he  asked  himself,  that  the  young  rocked  a  coffin, 
to  wake  the  dead?  "Heracles  is  alive  enough  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Yankee  Hylas.  But  there  is  Briggs,  always  writing 
of  swans  and  peacocks  and  of  girls  he  hasn't  kissed  and  of 
his  family  troubles!  A  nice  fellow,  but  how  did  he  come 
among  the  thumpers?"  Well,  there  was  at  least  one  thing 
that  held  them  together:  their  common  revolt  against  old  age 
and  all  that  goes  with  old  age,  the  old  age  that  would  always 
betray  youth. 

While  he  was  thus  reflecting,  the  company  were  warmly 
discussing  the  new  journal,  Tobias  leading  the  discussion.  In 
moments  of  excitement  he  moved  his  arms  and  figure  like  a 
circus  Indian  performing  a  ritual  dance. 

There  was  much  irrepressible  life  in  the  man.  They  were 
debating  the  title  of  the  periodical,  for  which  Tobias  said 
"some  half-witted  sympathiser  was  willing  to  put  up  the 
funds."  Some  militant  titles  were  suggested:  "The  Bayonet," 
"The  Rapier,"  "The  Attack,"  "The  Thrust,"  and  so  on. 
Bagg's  suggestion  was  then  discussed,  and  a  compromise  was 
effected  on  "Self,"  with  the  sub-title:  "An  International 
Journal  of  the  Arts.  No  compromise  with  public  taste.  No 
quarter  to  the  Royal  Academies.  No  encouragement  to 
parochialism  and  local  patriotism."  The  list  of  contributors 
was  to  include  English,  American,  French,  German  and  Russian 
names.  Raymond  Dinhard,  leader  and  spokesman  of  English 
Cubists — he  it  was  who  painted  the  War  in  the  Air — was 
present,  and  he  promised  to  contribute  some  articles  and 
manifestoes.  Two  or  three  of  his  disciples  were  also  there, 
260 


THUMP!  THUMP!  THUMP! 

who  appeared  to  regard  him  with  awe  and  roundly  abused 
his  critics  and  enemies.  Conrad  Barron,  Bagg's  admirer,  also 
turned  up.  This  youth,  who  had  virgins  on  his  brain,  was  a 
sallow-faced,  grey-eyed  Pole-Czech,  and  Gombarov  did  not 
take  to  him.  After  exchanging  a  few  trivial  remarks  with 
him,  he  joined  Douglass,  who  took  him  by  the  arm.  They 
joined  a  little  group,  of  which  Rodd  was  again  the  centre, 
expounding  Bergsonism: 

".  .  .  we  have  at  last  invented  a  system  that  combines  God 
and  Devil  in  one,  or,  if  you  like,  we  have  abolished  both,  and 
put  hi  their  stead  the  idea  of  creative  evolution.  What  men 
call  good  and  evil,  creation  and  destruction,  love  and  hate, 
are  complementary  to  one  another,  are,  in  fact,  one  and  the 
same  thing.  Destruction  is  creation.  ..." 

"Don't  you  think  sex  is  a  good  symbol  for  this?"  interposed 
Barron.  "There  is  no  conception  without  destruction,  as  all 
good  virgins  learn,  sooner  or  later." 

Bagg  winked  an  eye  at  Gombarov,  who  smiled. 

"Yes,  that  is  true,"  said  Rodd.  "In  every  sexual  ecstasy 
a  man  momentarily  destroys  his  woman,  and  he,  the  conqueror, 
destroys  himself,  too,  in  the  process,  is  absorbed,  as  it  were, 
by  the  vanquished.  A  young  man  of  genius  sits  at  his 
master's  feet,  yields  to  him,  in  order,  like  a  woman,  to  absorb 
him.  Who  knows,  Shakespeare  might  have  thus  sat  at  Mar- 
lowe's feet,  and  yielded  to  him  as  a  disciple,  in  order  to 
absorb  him?  Great  weapons  of  destruction  resembling  phalli 
are  being  made  by  all  nations,  and  it  is  conceivable  that  one 
day  they  will  be  used  to  destroy  things  that  are  to  make  way 
for  the  things  that  are  to  be.  The  artists  also,  in  their  new  art, 
are  forging  weapons  to  batter  down  the  doors  of  the  Royal 
Academies  to  make  room  for  the  art  that  is  to  be." 

"That  is  a  terrible  philosophy,"  observed  Strogovsky,  "for 
261 


BABEL 

it  does  away  with  the  absolute,  the  idea  of  things  in  them- 
selves." 

"It  merely  changes  the  conception  of  the  eternal,"  replied 
Rodd.  "Consider  a  formidable  rock  in  the  sea.  Now  men 
would  call  that  rock  eternal.  But  it  is  only  a  matter  of  time 
when  that  rock  will  be  worn  down  by  the  sea,  and  only  the 
movement  of  the  sea  is  eternal.  Living  modern  art  is  that 
gathering  sea  making  onslaughts  on  the  rock  of  the  Royal 
Academy  and  all  dead  arts,  and,  conceivably,  it  will  one  day 
change  the  colours  and  contours  of  that  rock.  There  is  no 
dead  matter,  since  anything  can  be  changed  or  destroyed  by 
impact  or  by  inner  chemical  processes  accelerated  by  this 
impact.  There  is  only  eternal  energy,  conflict,  movement, 
and  the  indestructible  human  will,  which,  at  moments  of 
profound  intuition,  comes  indeed  like  an  irresistible  tidal 
wave.  .  .  .  Never  fear,  all  the  walls  humanity  has  built  up 
will  be  battered  down.  It's  all  a  matter  of  time.  How 
many  civilisations  have  fallen  to  make  way  for  others,  but 
none  have  fallen  in  a  day,  and  none  were  built  up  in  a  day. 
And  the  new  has  always  its  beginnings  before  the  old  has 
fallen.  It  has  always  been  interpenetration,  the  new  ever 
impregnating  what  appears  to  be  dead  matter,  and  giving  it 
new  life  in  a  new  form.  .  .  ." 

"Hugh,  the  Cowleys  are  leaving,"  came  up  Mrs.  Rodd, 
interrupting  the  conversation.  "Heracles  would  like  to  have 
a  word  with  you." 

This  was  a  signal  for  breaking  up,  and  all  the  visitors  were 
scrambling  for  their  overcoats  and  hats. 


262 


THUMP!  THUMP!  THUMP! 


KINGS  WITHOUT  KINGDOMS 

Gombarov  and  Strogovsky  walked  home  together,  on  that 
December  night,  in  silence,  each  absorbed  in  his  own  oppressive 
thoughts.  Latterly,  Julius  had  been  morose  and  uncommuni- 
cative. Each  knew  the  other's  troubles,  these  had  been  talked 
over  again  and  again,  there  was  nothing  more  to  be  said. 
And  they  were  both  ashamed  before  one  another.  What  did 
all  these  things,  such  as  love,  matter?  Beside  the  things  that 
were  going  on  in  the  world,  beside  the  big  thoughts  being 
thought,  the  big  things  being  done?  And  love  was  no  more 
than  hate,  or  the  same  thing,  as  Rodd  had  said.  And  here, 
along  Bayswater  Road,  as  always,  sat  old  beggars,  men  and 
women,  huddled  together  to  keep  warm;  and  there,  across  the 
way,  as  always,  stood  a  row  of  big  houses,  with  luxuriant 
bedrooms,  man  and  woman,  man  and  woman,  man  and  woman, 
in  large  soft  beds,  and  lovely  soft  things  across  a  chair.  Was 
it  not  so  in  Nineveh,  in  Babylon,  in  Carthage?  What  did  it 
matter?  Yet  it  did  matter,  if  you  were  not  a  beggar  in  mind, 
but  thought  a  king's  thoughts,  as  you  wandered  on  foot  in  a 
fog,  without  the  tiniest  kingdom,  be  that  kingdom  no  more 
than  your  queen,  a  loved  and  loving  woman,  subject  to  your 
rule,  a  willing  vessel  for  your  loves  and  wraths. 

"It's  all  nonsense  for  you  and  me  to  be  going  on  like  this," 
said  Julius,  breaking  the  silence.  "And  I  can  have  no  intel- 
lectual sympathy  with  either  of  us.  Yet  what's  to  be  done? 
Rodd  is  quite  right.  We  are  vessels  of  energy,  and  what  are 
we  to  do  with  this  energy  that  pours  over?  The  sea  beats 
against  the  rock,  the  artist  hammers  against  old  doors,  the 
soldier  fires  his  guns  on  the  enemy's  defences;  but  what  is 
left  for  us  to  do  but  to  beat  our  heads  against  the  wall,  an 
unprofitable  business  1" 

263 


BABEL 

They  parted  in  the  corridor  on  the  top  floor  of  their  board- 
ing house  in  Princes  Square,  and  each  went  to  his  cold  bed. 

Gombarov  turned  from  side  to  side,  unable  to  sleep.  His 
thought,  a  restless  energy,  squirmed  within  him,  and  he 
squirmed  with  it.  The  rain  began  to  patter  on  the  roof,  and 
presently  came  down  in  a  hard  shower.  The  fog  had  appar- 
ently lifted.  He  felt  himself  alone  and  forsaken  in  this 
great  London.  He  clutched  at  the  pillow  and  groaned  as  in 
pain. 

He  had  a  dream.  He  dreamt  he  sat  in  a  blue  room,  in  the 
twilight  and  that  he  flew  a  kite  out  of  the  window.  There 
was  a  single  bright  star  in  the  sky,  and  towards  it  the  kite 
aspired.  He  was  letting  out  the  string  little  by  little  and 
came  to  the  end  of  it.  The  kite  was  tugging  toward  the  star 
and  could  not  reach  it.  He  felt  infinitely  sad  and  thought, 
where  could  he  get  more  string?  And  suddenly  a  woman's 
form  appeared  beside  him.  It  was  a  Botticellian  figure,  with 
the  face  of  a  smiling  Fra  Angelican  angel,  and  together  they 
bent  down  to  look  in  cupboards  and  under  beds  and  in  all 
sorts  of  corners  and  crevices  for  a  bit  of  string,  so  that  the 
kite  might  reach  the  lone  star.  He  was  filled  with  a  great 
hope  that  together  they  would  find  that  bit  of  string,  and 
that  his  kite  would  at  last  reach  the  lone  star.  His  companion 
was  on  her  knees  on  the  floor,  and  graceful  was  the  line  of 
her  curve  in  voluminous,  clinging  draperies.  "I  have  it!"  she 
exclaimed,  turning  her  face  to  him,  while  her  hair  brushed 
him.  But  a  hard,  frightening  knock  came  on  the  door,  and 
he  shook  all  over.  He  opened  his  eyes  on  broad  daylight. 
He  lay  still,  uncertain  whether  he  was  still  dreaming. 

A  hard  knock  came  to  the  door.    He  shouted: 

"Come  in!" 

Lily  came  in,  smiling,  a  jug  of  steaming  water  hi  her  hand: 
264 


THUMP!  THUMP!  THUMP! 

"Well,  you  are  a  sleepy-head! "  she  said.  "That's  the  third 
time  I've  knocked. 

And,  as  had  become  her  habit,  she  came  over  to  him  and 
kissed  his  lips,  and  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  his  bed. 


265 


CHAPTER  VII:  WITCHES'  CAULDRON 

"Weary  se'nnights  nine  times  nine 
Shall  he  dwindle,  peak,  and  pine: 
Though  his  bark  cannot  be  lost, 
Yet  it  shall  be  tempest-tost." 
— MACBETH. 

IN  QUEST  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

"WELL,  ducky-bird,"  said  Lily,  as  she  sat  on  the  edge  of  his 
bed  and  shook  a  finger  at  him.  "It's  another  late  night  you've 
been  having!  Doing  good  to  the  girls,  eh?  Well,  b'hoys 
will  be  b'hoys,  won't  they,  honey?" 

He  lay  still,  and  made  no  answer.  She  waited  a  few 
moments,  then  bent  over  and  kissed  his  lips  again,  and  took 
hold  of  the  cold  hand  lying  outside  the  bed-cover.  She  took 
it  in  her  two  hands  and  rubbing  it  and  fondling  it,  went  on 
speaking: 

"My  poor  ducky-bird  is  cold.  My  poor  ducky-bird  wants 
warming  up.  My  poor  ducky-bird  wants  making  a  fuss  of. 
A  nice  girl  to  hold  his  hands.  A  nice  girl  to  kiss  him.  ..." 

And  she  bent  over  him  again  and  putting  her  lips  to  his 
kept  them  there. 

He  was  beginning  to  be  keenly  aware  of  the  proximity  of 
the  white  buxom  girl.  He  felt  himself  thawing  out.  She  was 
infusing  a  warmth  into  him.  It  came  gently  at  first,  then 
poured  through  his  body  in  a  wave.  His  two  arms,  coming 
out  of  striped  pyjama  sleeves,  slipped  round  her  shoulders  and 
held  them,  fingers  spread  out  and  feverishly  clutching  and 
digging,  through  the  material,  into  the  soft  flesh.  Coinci- 
266 


WITCHES'  CAULDRON 

dently,  a  thought  stirred  in  his  mind,  a  long  conceived,  a  hesi- 
tating, an  unacted  thought,  which  first  came  to  him  in  the 
days  when,  much  to  his  astonishment,  Lily  began  to  show  a 
fondness  for  him.  It  was  an  unaccountable  fondness,  as  Lily 
already  had  a  young  man,  whom  she  had  promised  to  marry. 
It  was  an  incomprehensible  state  of  affairs  that  curiously 
intensified  his  misgivings  about  Winifred.  The  thought  had 
been  stirring  in  his  mind  for  weeks,  but  he  had  lacked  courage 
to  put  it  to  the  test,  for  it  takes  courage  for  men  of  Gombarov's 
type  to  act  unlike  themselves,  and  he  had  waited  until  the 
thought  should  gather  sufficient  impetus  to  translate  itself  into 
action.  His  fingers  still  clutching  at  Lily's  shoulders,  he  was 
thinking  fast,  precipitately,  a  wave  of  blood  pressing  on  his 
brain. 

"What  are  you  thinking  of,  honey?"  she  asked,  observing 
his  preoccupation. 

Her  question  seemed  to  snap  the  last  thread  of  his  inde- 
cision, and  hurling  himself  out  of  bed  and  pressing  her 
shoulders  down  he  leaned  over  her  and  with  strangely  dilated 
eyes  looked  into  hers,  which  showed  fear. 

"Don't!  Please  don't!"  she  cried,  as  if  she  had  divined 
a  sinister  intention  on  his  part.  "You  know,  ducky-bird,  I 
would  give  myself  to  you,  body  and  soul.  Indeed,  I  would, 
darling,  for  I  like  you  heaps.  But  I'm  afraid!  Horribly 
afraid.  You  know  I  would  if  I  weren't  afraid!  Don't  you 
think  I  want  you?  But  we  mustn't!" 

And  they  looked  into  one  another's  eyes,  full  of  fear,  his 
as  well  as  hers. 

"And  yet,  Lily,  you  have  a  young  man,"  he  said,  slowly, 
and  added:  "Do  you  mean  you'd  do  it,  even  though  you  have 
a  young  man,  if  you  weren't  afraid  of  a  baby?" 

"Yes,"  she  replied,  unhesitatingly.  "He  never  need  know 
267 


BABEL 

it.  You  make  me  feel  like  that.  But  what  chance  has  a 
girl  the  likes  of  me  in  this  world,  if  anything  happened? 
And  you,  being  a  gentleman,  could  never  marry  me.  I'm  just 
afraid,  that's  all!" 

"That's  all  I  wanted  to  know,"  said  he,  releasing  her.  "I 
didn't  mean  to  hurt  you.  I  wouldn't  hurt  you,  poor  child, 
for  all  the  world.  I  just  wanted  to  see  if  you  would." 

She  stood  up,  shook  herself,  and  looked  puzzled. 

"Forgive  me,"  he  said.  "You  know  I  didn't  mean  to  hurt 
you!" 

She  laughed  and  walking  up  to  him  planted  an  impetuous 
kiss  on  his  lips  and  ran  out  of  the  room. 

He  remained  standing  in  his  pyjamas  for  some  time,  think- 
ing. But  he  was  not  thinking  of  Lily.  He  was  thinking  of 
Winifred.  He  would  not  have  taken  advantage  of  Lily  even 
if  she  had  not  protested.  He  had  merely  used  the  energy  of 
a  passionate  moment  to  try  out  his  thought,  conceived  long 
since.  As  a  result  of  his  test,  a  new  thought,  a  new  misgiving, 
came  to  him.  If  Lily,  despite  her  young  man,  was  willing 
but  for  fear  of  consequences,  what  of  Winifred  in  Paris,  if 
some  intrepid  young  man  appeared  with  less  conscience  than 
himself — and  Paris  bred  such  young  men  in  plenty! — yes, 
what  of  Winifred? — granted  that  she  entertained  no  such  fears? 
For  she  had  forsaken  him  once  and  he  was  not  sure  of  her. 

His  mind  full  of  tumultuous  misgivings,  he  vigorously  pro- 
ceeded with  his  shaving. 

A  WOMAN'S  WAY 

He  found  two  letters  waiting  for  him  at  the  breakfast  table, 
where  Julius  sat,  morosely  consuming  his  porridge.  One  letter 
was  from  his  mother,  the  other  from  Winifred. 

He  opened  his  mother's  letter  first.  It  contained  an  account 
268 


WITCHES'  CAULDRON 

of  family  affairs,  which  was  even  more  depressing  than  usual. 
Things  were  going  from  bad  to  worse.  The  little  sum  he  had 
left  with  her  from  his  many  years'  savings  was  nearly  gone. 
Her  husband,  Semyon  Gombarov,  was  still  collecting  material 
for  his  book  on  Comparative  Cultures,  Ancient  and  Modern, 
Occidental  and  Oriental,  all  of  which  was  excellent  for  a 
bonfire,  but  hardly  the  sort  of  thing  one  could  make  a  meal  of. 
Besides,  he  was  now  a  confirmed  invalid,  and  the  doctor  said 
he  ought  to  have  his  daily  chicken  broth.  Ray  a,  the  truly 
golden  heart,  was  still  making  artificial  flowers.  Absalom  was 
working  as  a  book-keeper,  but  was  troubled  with  his  eyes, 
which  necessitated  his  taking  a  holiday,  and  Sonya,  poor  girl, 
was  about  to  undergo  another  operation  on  her  ear.  Dunya, 
though  the  mother  of  two  little  ones,  with  difficulties  of  her 
own,  did  all  she  could  for  them.  Misha,  with  his  genius  for 
mathematics,  was  about  to  try  for  a  Government  position.  Of 
course,  she  knew  that  he,  John,  had  been  a  very  good  son, 
had  sacrificed  his  life  to  them  and  so  ought  to  have  his  chance; 
still,  wasn't  it  foolhardy  of  him  to  remain  in  Europe  when 
good  jobs  were  going  in  America?  Wouldn't  it  be  to  his 
interest,  for  the  good  of  his  career,  to  come  back  and  either 
resume  his  position  on  the  New  World,  or  with  his  increased 
experience  find  a  better  in  New  York?  He  had  better  think 
it  over.  Besides,  she  didn't  like  the  idea  of  his  being  without 
a  home,  living  among  strangers  and  no  one  to  look  after  him. 

Gombarov  translated  the  letter  which  was  written  in 
Russian,  to  Julius,  who  said  without  hesitation: 

"My  dear  boy,  I  advise  you  to  stay  where  you  are.  You 
have  given  your  life  to  your  family  and  though  it's  true  they 
couldn't  help  it,  yet  they've  drained  every  drop  of  your  blood. 
You've  got  yourself  to  look  after.  As  it  is,  you  have  such  a 
handicap  to  overcome.  I  sometimes  marvel  at  your  courage, 
269 


BABEL 

after  the  start  you've  had.  But  look  at  it  practically.  What 
will  happen  if  you  go  back?  You  will  be  caught  up  in  your 
old  whirlpool,  and  you  will  end  up  by  cutting  your  throat, 
which  will  be  a  kindness  neither  to  your  mother  nor  yourself. 
Besides,  you've  been  only  nine  months  in  Europe,  yet  you've 
changed  incredibly.  You'll  not  be  able  to  go  back  to  the  old 
grind.  It's  unthinkable,  my  boy!" 

"You  are  quite  right,  Julius.  I've  been  thinking  that 
myself.  Just  what  I  would  do,  cut  my  throat!  Mother  is  a 
brave,  enduring  soul,  but  what  can  I  do?  God  knows,  it  hasn't 
been  easy  for  me  here,  what  with  earning  my  living,  thinking 
of  art,  and  of  other  things  I  need  not  tell  you  of." 

He  opened  the  letter  from  Winifred,  but  as  he  read  on  his 
face  slowly  turned  grey.  Julius  fixed  his  eyes  on  his  friend 
and  waited  for  him  to  speak.  But  Gombarov,  thrusting  the 
letter  into  his  pocket,  said  nothing,  and  listlessly  sipped  his 
coffee. 

"Look  here,  John,"  said  Julius.  "I  don't  want  to  pry  into 
your  affairs,  but  I  don't  like  to  see  you  suffering.  Chuck  it, 
I  say,  once  and  for  all.  If  you  can't  chuck  it,  be  firm.  The 
best  of  women  want  to  be  ruled  with  an  iron  hand.  You 
don't  want  to  deal  with  the  woman  who  is  at  the  back  of  your 
mind,  but  with  the  woman  as  she  is.  Don't  be  too  soft  with 
them.  There  is  too  much  humanity,  too  much  pity  in  you. 
Mind  you,  I  like  you  for  it.  Still,  women  are  not  slow  in 
taking  advantage  of  it.  You've  got  to  be  firm  with  them, 
though  they  be  angels  incarnate.  They  can't  help  themselves." 

"You  may  be  quite  right,"  said  Gombarov,  after  a  silence. 
"Still,  there's  my  own  nature.  Shall  I  compromise  with 
myself?  And  an  American  woman  has  been  trained  to  expect 
chivalry  from  a  man." 

"All  women  are  at  bottom  alike,"  replied  Julius.  "And  there 
270 


WITCHES'  CAULDRON 

are  times  when  a  man  must  overcome  his  own  nature,  be  above 
himself.  There  is  only  one  way  to  deal  fairly  with  women, 
and  that  is  to  be  a  man  to  them,  firm  and  unvacillating.  You 
must  follow  the  biological  law." 

They  gave  a  spontaneous  laugh.  A  good  sign,  to  be  still 
able  to  laugh. 

"I  know  it's  all  very  silly,"  said  Gombarov.  "I  never  go 
out  of  my  way  to  seek  a  quarrel.  Yet  what  is  all  this  about? 
Simply  this.  Some  days  ago  she  sent  me  a  novel  and  asked 
my  opinion  of  it.  In  this  novel  a  woman  of  spirit  has  the 
choice  of  marrying  a  man  of  genius,  one  of  the  vampire  sort, 
who  thrives  by  absorbing  others,  or  a  nice  harmless,  soft- 
hearted idiot  named  Reginald.  She  chooses  the  first  and  loses 
her  personality  in  him.  He  has  no  use  for  her  but  as  a 
housekeeper  and  bedfellow.  The  woman  of  spirit  submits. 
Yet  all  the  while  she  holds  the  other  man  as  a  friend  and 
companion,  and  he  submits  to  the  humiliation.  That  rather 
riled  me.  Such  things  may  be  possible  in  our  civilisation, 
but  I  hold  that  it  is  unnatural.  A  woman  who  marries  the 
man  of  her  choice,  yet  keeps  her  other  lover  tied  to  her 
apron-strings  is  detestable,  while  Reginald  is  a  milksop  and 
deserves  his  humiliation.  I  said  so  in  my  letter.  Now  it 
appears  that  Reginald  is  a  particular  pet  of  hers,  I  mean 
Winifred's." 

"All  this  is  very  trivial,"  said  Julius,  with  a  shrug. 

"Nothing  is  trivial,  things  only  seem  trivial,"  returned 
Gombarov.  "Trivial  things  in  matters  of  love  are  the  straws 
showing  the  way  the  wind  blows.  Why  did  she  send  me  that 
of  all  books,  insisting,  too,  for  an  opinion  of  it?  Why  should 
she  take  a  fancy  to  a  milksop  like  Reginald — it's  not  like 
her  at  all! — and  then  pick  a  quarrel  with  me  because  I  called 
him  a  milksop?  She  may  not  be  doing  it  deliberately,  or  even 


BABEL 

consciously.  Yet  she  may  have  an  eye  on  one  of  those  budding 
geniuses  that  Paris  is  full  of,  and  she  is  fancying  herself  in  the 
part  of  the  wife  and  me  playing  the  part  of  Reginald  the 
milksop!  Women's  acts  are  usually  trivial,  but  their  motives 
are  often  of  great  inwardness.  Besides,  a  woman  seldom  quar- 
rels with  her  lover  about  books;  she  either  shares  his  opinions 
or  pretends  to.  The  only  time  I've  quarrelled  with  her  about  a 
book  was  when  she  chucked  me  the  first  time.  It  was  the 
prelude  to  her  chucking,  and  that's  why  I  don't  like  it.  That 
being  so,  you  will  say  I  ought  to  chuck  the  whole  thing. 
Perhaps  I  should.  Yet,  though  I  see  all  this,  how  am  I  to 
control  my  feelings,  all  of  which  irresistibly  draw  me  towards 
her,  as  if  she  were  my  very  lost  soul,  without  which  I  cannot 
live?" 

"Whatever  you  do,  my  boy,  be  firm  with  her.  Don't  let 
her  feel  that  you  haven't  got  hold  of  the  reins." 

Gombarov  lapsed  into  melancholy,  and  said  after  a  silence: 

"What  do  you  think  of  moving  to  Bloomsbury?  I  examined 
my  bank  balance  yesterday  and  calculated  my  income.  I 
cannot  afford  to  live  here  and  pay  for  meals  that  I  don't  have 
In  Bloomsbury,  too,  I  shall  be  saving  on  'bus  fares." 

"Not  a  bad  idea.  I  too  must  retrench.  My  lessons  are  not 
bringing  hi  much.  What  do  you  say  to  looking  for  a  place 
to-day?" 

"Righto!" 

FOG 

Ten  days  later  the  two  friends  were  installed  in  Bury 
Street,  Bloomsbury,  not  many  yards  from  one  another,  and 
within  sight  of  the  British  Museum. 

"Bury  Street!"  exclaimed  Julius.  "Just  the  street  for  two 
living  corpses!" 

272 


WITCHES'  CAULDRON 

Theirs  were  typical  Bloomsbury  "digs,"  containing  all  the 
melancholy  paraphernalia  usual  to  bed-sitting  rooms  which 
fetched  their  owners  ten-and-six  a  week,  without  breakfast. 
There  was  an  appearance  of  dust  on  everything,  and  the 
windows  looked  out  on  grimy  roofs  and  armies  of  chimney-pots 
and  telegraph  wires. 

In  looking  through  the  chest  of  drawers  Gombarov  found  a 
large  quantity  of  luxuriant  silken  red  hair  fittingly  shrouded 
in  a  black  veil,  doubtless  a  souvenir  of  a  Bloomsbury  romance 
and  by  no  means  an  edifying  omen  to  a  disconsolate  lover.  The 
hair  seemed  alive,  as  if  it  were  still  on  the  head  of  its  owner 
and  the  temptation  he  had  to  stroke  it  reminded  him  of  a 
certain  story  by  Maupassant,  which  told  of  a  man's  passion 
for  just  such  a  treasure,  a  passion  that  drove  him  to  put  it 
by  him  on  his  pillow  every  night.  "Poor  little  woman!" 
thought  Gombarov.  "In  leaving  this  behind,  the  man  to 
whom  you  have  entrusted  these  locks  has  betrayed  you!" 
He  wrapped  them  up  and  restored  them  to  the  place  where 
he  had  found  them.  "Why  should  this  make  me  sentimental?" 
he  asked  himself. 

There  was  not  much  to  choose  between  their  landlords  and 
landladies.  Gombarov's  landlady  was  a  short  fat  cockney 
woman  married  to  a  German  tailor,  who,  on  seeing  Gombarov's 
books  and  learning  that  he  was  a  literary  "gent,"  spouted  to 
him,  when  the  opportunity  offered  on  "de  pewtiful  poezie"  of 
Schiller  and  Heine.  "There's  no  such  poezie  in  England,"  he 
used  to  say.  "We  Germans  make  pest  poezie  and  pest  beer. 
.  .  .  Ach,  Gott,  and  die  German  moozic!"  Julius's  landlord 
was  an  Englishman,  a  silent  man,  while  his  wife,  a  thin-faced, 
shrewish  hag,  took  the  precaution  of  warning  her  lodger  that 
her  house  was  "strictly  respectable.  For  gentlemen  only.  No 
lady  visitors  allowed!"  Poor  Julius,  returning  to  his  room 

273 


BABEL 

late  the  first  evening,  while  on  the  stairs  heard  voices  coming 
from  the  bedroom  occupied  by  the  virtuous  pair.    One  phrase 

caught  his  ear:    "You ,  you  are  worse  than  a  prostitute! " 

uttered  by  his  landlord. 

At  that  time  there  descended  upon  the  two  friends  a  pall 
of  fog,  dense  and  impenetrable,  internal  and  external,  a  fog 
of  sadness,  of  inchoate  despair.  They  were  steeped  in  that 
fog,  and  there  was  no  sign  of  its  lifting,  and  they  were  doomed 
to  walk  in  it  as  blurred,  disturbed  shadows,  shrouded  in  a 
smoky  mist  only  a  degree  less  shadowy.  Grey  shadows,  they 
walked  in  silence,  in  separate  and  distinct  universes,  and  their 
unheard  hearts  were  screaming  eagles  within  making  free  with 
sharp,  pitiless  beaks  and  agitated  broad-flapping  wings;  and 
they  seemed  to  walk  among  other  shadows,  equally  grey  and 
indeterminate,  among  other  separate  and  distinct  universes, 
some  silent,  some  talking  or  murmuring,  some  boisterously 
laughing,  but  all  equally  shadowy,  equally  unreal. 

Gombarov  got  into  the  habit  of  getting  up  late.  Why  get 
up  at  all?  To  wake  in  the  morning  was  to  prepare  for  one's 
execution.  Sleep  itself  was  a  passing  into  another  kind  of 
wakefulness,  in  which  the  nothingness  and  unreality  of  day 
assumed  highly  concentrated  forms  of  dream  and  nightmare. 
What  horrible  beings  lived  in  the  chaos  of  unconscioi 
what  shaggy  sinister  forms  with  jeering  faces,  prodding 
at  last  into  waking  in  cold  sweat  and  terror,  and  arousing 
impulse  to  stretch  out  a  hand  and  grasp  at  a  poison  pill  or 
revolver,  wherewith  to  put  an  end  to  an  existence  in  whic 
such  things  were  possible. 

There  was  a  night  when  he  thought  he  was  awake,  and 
heard  the  door  quietly  open  until  it  rested  against  the 
where  his  head  lay,  and  a  woman,  a  hag-like  creature, 
sound  the  door  at  him.    She  was  ugly  and  horrible,  malice 
274 


WITCHES'  CAULDRON 

lasciviousness  and  evil  were  on  her  face,  and  with  it  all  she 
was  smiling;  only  in  hell  could  one  conceive  of  such  a  smile. 
And,  looking  upon  her  with  fascinated  terror,  he  thought: 
"She  is  evil  incarnate,  all  the  ugliness  of  the  world  is  concen- 
trated in  her  face.  If  I  do  not  stare  her  out,  I  am  lost!" 
And,  in  sweat  and  terror,  with  all  the  will  at  his  command, 
he  raised  his  head  from  the  pillow  and  stared  at  her  with  a 
painful  intentness,  until  the  face  lost  some  of  its  features, 
turned  amorphous,  and  slowly  vanished.  He  dropped  his 
head  back  on  the  pillow  and,  quite  awake  now,  wondered 
whether  he  had  been  awake  while  the  vision  lasted.  And, 
inevitably,  he  thought  of  Winifred,  who  had  forsaken  him. 

There  was  another  night,  another  dream.  He  was  sitting  in 
a  barber's  chair,  and  in  the  next  chair  sat  a  burly,  bald-headed 
man  with  great  folds  of  fat  running  over  his  collar  at  the 
back  of  his  neck.  He  had  a  hard,  aggressive  face,  the  face  of 
a  ruthless  business-man,  who  ground  down  widows  and  orphans 
and  took  the  last  bit  of  bread  out  of  their  mouths.  Gombarov 
observed  him  with  horror.  The  barber  was  playing  a  keen 
blade  over  Gombarov's  face,  and  it  suddenly  occurred  to  him 
that  the  barber  intended  to  cut  off  his  head.  "It's  all  right," 
the  barber  seemed  to  say,  "don't  be  alarmed.  It  will  be  much 
easier  to  shave  than  on  your  shoulders."  And  helplessly  he 
observed  the  barber  cutting  off  his  head,  and  doing  the  same 
to  his  horrible  neighbour.  Then  he  grew  fiercely  terrified,  as 
he  divined  the  barber's  intention  of  putting  Gombarov's  head 
on  the  shoulders  of  the  other  customer,  and  the  latter 's  horrible 
head  on  his  own  shoulders.  He  tried  to  protest,  but  found 
himself  unable  to  utter  a  word.  He  just  caught  the  barber's 
words:  "You'll  be  much  happier  with  this  one!"  and  swooned 
away  into  wakefulness.  And  on  awaking,  in  cold  sweat  and 
terror,  he  thought  of  Winifred,  who  had  forsaken  him. 
275 


BABEL 

And,  days  and  nights,  thinking  of  her,  he  saw  no  future, 
only  a  wall  of  impenetrable  fog.  His  mind,  too,  was  in  the 
nature  of  fog,  motionless  but  for  the  scurrying  of  blurred 
shadows  of  thoughts,  and  neither  ray  nor  shaft  of  light  to 
give  colour  or  semblance  of  conscious  life.  His  heart  alone 
lived  and  flamed,  with  terror  and  despair. 

He  revived  on  days  when  the  outer  fog,  tinged  a  translucent 
yellow,  the  yellow  of  a  canary  and  soft  as  its  down,  brooded 
over  London  like  an  immense  yet  gentle  fowl,  and  he  found  it 
pleasant  to  lose  himself  in  it  as  a  young  bird  under  the 
protecting  soft  wings  of  its  mother.  This  yellow  fog  calmed 
him,  soothed  him;  his  whole  being  softened  under  it,  borrowed 
from  its  mellowness;  with  fascination  he  watched  the  soft, 
two-dimensional  purple  shadows  flit  by.  On  such  days  his 
favourite  spot  was  the  Thames  Embankment,  where  his  eyes, 
resting  on  the  river,  found  peace  in  contemplating  the  funereal 
barges,  which  either  stood  still  or  moved  in  stately  procession 
toward  London  Bridge.  A  red  sail  nearby,  its  colour  softened 
by  the  yellow  air,  was  like  an  outspread  wing  of  a  huge  bird 
resting  on  the  water.  Nothing  could  be  lovelier  than  the 
Bridge,  observed  from  the  Embankment.  It  was  a  deep  purple, 
two-dimensional,  for  all  the  world  like  a  series  of  arches  cut 
out  of  cardboard,  or  better,  soft  felt,  and  the  'buses  and  the 
drays  and  the  little  people  which  moved  or  glided  across  it 
also  appeared  to  be  cut  out  of  the  same  flat  felt  and  lost  in 
the  yellow  as  in  the  reflection  of  dim  firelight.  It  was  all  as  in 
a  fairy  tale,  and  had  all  the  unreality  of  childish  invention. 
He  found  a  comfort  in  this  beautiful  unreality,  and  reflected 
with  some  pleasure  upon  the  fact  that  he,  too,  must  have 
seemed  a  two-dimensional  toy  cut  out  of  soft  felt  and  swathed 
in  the  yellow  caressing  light  of  another  world.  He  immersed 
himself  in  contemplation  of  this  unreal  world,  and  his  troubles 
276 


WITCHES'  CAULDRON 

vanished,  or  became  transformed  and  transfigured,  assumed 
this  unreal,  decorative,  two-dimensional  quality,  put  on  the 
deep  purple  of  a  king's  robes.  What  did  anything  matter? 
Princes  and  princesses  glided  by,  or  were  they  beggars?  It  did 
not  matter.  They  were  all  alike,  and  they  were  all  beautiful. 
A  strange  faith  came  to  him  out  of  this  yellow  fog,  an 
incomprehensible  belief  in  beauty  consuming  ugliness,  reality 
and  pain.  What  else  mattered? 

But  there  were  times  when  things  did  matter,  especially 
on  waking  in  the  morning.  Waking  to  what?  To  thoughts  of 
nothingness  and  death.  .  .  .  Still,  there  was  plenty  of  time 
tor  that;  in  any  case,  one  must  die  sooner  or  later. 

He  would  set  to  work  preparing  his  breakfast.  Breakfast 
without  hope  was  a  wretched  thing.  It  made  a  bad  start  for 
the  day.  The  thought  of  Winifred  interposed  itself  into  the 
most  trivial  things.  He  had  once  liked  to  think  of  having  his 
breakfasts  with  her,  of  seeing  her  things  on  the  wall,  of  hearing 
her  footsteps  in  the  next  room  or  coming  up  the  stairs.  .  .  . 
There  were  all  the  usual  thoughts  a  man  thinks.  .  .  .  When  she 
was  loving  and  kind  to  him,  he  had  regarded  her  pityingly,  as  if 
she  were  a  child,  but  when  he  saw  her  slipping  from  his  grasp 
he  could  have  treated  her  as  ruthlessly  as  any  soldier  a  virgin 
on  entering  a  conquered  city.  He  could  see  her  side,  too: 
life  was  flitting  by,  and  what  with  his  handicaps  much  time 
would  pass  before  he  could  ask  her  to  come  to  him.  Why 
had  he  been  given  reason  and  pity  on  the  one  hand,  this  fierce 
masculinity  on  the  other,  to  be  torn  between  the  two?  He 
thought  of  that  dream  of  his  in  the  barber's  chair.  One  must 
choose  either,  but  he  was  both. 

He  wanted  a  love  that  would  give  itself  unconditionally, 
flame  eternally.  It  is  said  that  every  man  desires  a  woman 
like  his  own  mother,  and  his  mother  had  loved  her  Semyon 
277 


BABEL 

unconditionally,  enduring  everything  for  the  sake  of  her  love. 

Breakfast  over,  he  would  sit  down  at  the  table,  pen  in  hand, 
a  pile  of  paper  before  him,  and  fixing  his  gaze  out  of  the 
window  on  the  chimney-pots,  row  upon  row  of  them,  one  above 
the  other,  he  would  sense  a  hard  Cubist  impression  of  life,  and 
only  a  rare  small  tear,  blurring  his  vision,  would  dissolve  the 
geometric  perception,  against  the  background  of  intersecting 
telegraph  wires,  into  an  illusion  of  running,  even  precipitate, 
musical  notation,  which,  if  it  could  be  translated  into  sound, 
would  doubtless  be  productive  of  a  jangling,  frenzied,  iron 
music,  interposing  itself  between  him  and  the  waning  harmony 
of  his  lost  world  beyond. 

Having  achieved  a  comma,  a  phrase,  or  even  a  paragraph, 
he  would  rise,  put  his  hat  and  coat  on,  and  venture  out.  After 
some  indecision  he  would  run  in  to  see  Julius. 

He  would  find  Julius  sitting  in  his  dressing-gown,  looking 
into  the  fire.  One  elbow  on  knee,  chin  on  palm,  his  frame 
would  be  rigidly  motionless,  a  thing  hewn  out  of  stone,  a 
distinguished  brooding  emanating  from  every  inch  of  it,  for 
all  the  world  Rodin's  Le  Penseur.  This  brooding  swathed  him 
like  a  perplexed  aura,  hovered  round  him  in  thick  clouds;  its 
infectious  fumes  caught  poor  Gombarov,  who,  after  futile 
efforts  at  cheering  up  his  friend,  would  succumb  to  the  same 
brooding  silence,  until  unable  to  bear  its  intensity  any  longer, 
he  would  depart,  leaving  his  friend  in  the  statuesque  attitude 
in  which  he  had  found  him.  They  were  Job  meeting  Job, 
but  Gombarov's  pity  for  himself  was  lost  in  his  pity  for  his 
friend,  who,  like  himself,  had  cut  the  thin  thread  that  held 
him  to  his  cherished  world,  and  he  now  glimpsed  that  world 
gliding  in  the  distant  ether,  unreachable  and  irrevocable. 
And  his  frozen  fury  held  him  still  and  rigid  in  his  chair. 

278 


WITCHES'  CAULDRON 

FLAMES 

This  is  how  things  had  come  to  such  a  pass  for  the  two 
friends. 

Coincidently  with  Gombarov's  receipt  of  his  letter  from 
Winifred,  Julius  having  long  contemplated  the  futility  of  his 
own  affair  had  already  come  to  a  decision  and  despatched  to 
his  love  an  ultimatum  of  "All  or  Nothing!"  One  morning  a 
voluminous  letter  arrived  for  him,  and  it  was  quite  apparent 
from  his  face,  as  he  silently  read  it,  that  the  answer  was,  in 
fact,  Nothing!  Clearly,  few  women  could  write  "Nothing" 
in  a  single  word. 

As  for  Gombarov,  he  had  been  conducting  an  acrimonious 
correspondence  with  Winifred  for  a  full  fortnight,  and  matters 
had  approached  a  breaking-point.  Julius,  moved  partly  by 
sympathy  for  his  friend's  suffering,  partly  perhaps  by  his 
fury,  unspent  after  his  own  precipitate  action,  passionately 
exclaimed: 

"Your  policy  of  reasonableness  will  never  get  you  anywhere. 
There  are  no  two  ways  out  of  this.  What  you  want  to  know, 
once  and  for  all,  is  whether  she  wants  you  or  not.  You  must 
put  it  to  her  firmly  and  clearly.  You  are  writing  to  her  now, 
are  you?  Well,  write  her  this."  And  Julius  grasped  his 
friend's  hand,  that  held  the  pen,  and  furiously  conducted  it 
across  the  paper. 

"This  correspondence,"  declared  the  two-handed  pen,  "has 
gone  on  long  enough.  I  must  know,  and  have  a  right  to  know, 
what  your  intentions  are.  I  demand  all  or  nothing,  and  ask 
for  a  definite  answer  as  to  which  it  shall  be.  I  need  not 
dwell  here  on  my  own  feelings  towards  you.  These  have  been 
quite  clear  and  unconditional,  and  I  cannot  do  with  less  from 
you!" 

279 


BABEL 

"You  don't  think  it's  too  strong?"  asked  Gombarov. 

"You  can't  make  it  too  strong.  If  a  woman  loves  you,  she 
won't  let  you  go  just  because  of  that.  On  the  contrary,  she'll 
have  a  new  respect  for  you.  If  she  doesn't  love  you,  it  doesn't 
matter!" 

Gombarov  had  to  confess  this  to  be  good  reasoning. 

"Now  address  the  envelope,  and  let's  go  out  to  post  it," 
added  Julius,  seeing  his  friend  hesitate. 

And  it  was  done. 

An  answer  came  within  three  days:  Nothing!  Or  words 
to  that  effect.  She  added  that  if  he  returned  her  letters,  she 
would  return  his. 

The  last  thread  that  held  him  to  the  eternal  snapped.  Love, 
that  atoned  for  his  past,  gave  reason  to  the  present,  and  was 
to  have  been  a  projection  into  the  future,  had  ceased  to  exist. 
The  illusion  of  love,  if  illusion  it  was,  had  held  him  together, 
and  now  that  it  was  gone  he  felt  himself  to  be  falling  apart; 
and  life  appeared  to  be  no  more  than  a  collection  of  inconse- 
quent fragments,  drifting  hither  and  thither,  with  nothing  to 
hold  them  together.  Was  it  weakness  to  give  love  so  high  a 
place?  Weakness  or  not,  now  that  it  was  gone  and  left  him 
empty,  a  whirlwind  of  rage  swept  through  the  devastated 
places  of  him,  and  for  a  full  week  a  demoniac  fury  drove  him 
through  the  London  streets,  until  it  spent  itself  and  left  him 
exhausted. 

He  did  not  reply  to  her  letter.  On  the  eighth  day  another 
letter  came  from  her,  imploring  him  to  write  to  her.  Was 
he  still  among  the  living,  and  well?  She  was  frantic  for  news 
of  him,  she  was  horribly  afraid  of  his  doing  harm  to  himself. 
God  knew,  though  things  could  never  be  as  he  wanted  them, 
yet  she  felt  as  sad  as  he.  But  if  only  he  was  still  alive,  she 
would  feel  comforted. 

280 


WITCHES'  CAULDRON 

"I  am  alive  and  quite  well,"  he  wrote,  to  relieve  her  anxiety, 
"and  please  do  not  trouble  to  write  me  again."  He  was  sorry 
for  her,  but  felt  that  he  had  to  be  hard,  even  on  himself. 
His  stubbornness  aspired  to  become  a  will.  He  needed  that 
to  replace  his  lost  illusion.  He  said  to  himself:  "To  lose 
in  the  estimation  of  others  is  a  misfortune,  to  lose  in  one's 
own  eyes  is  a  calamity."  He  was  fighting  for  life.  His  back 
against  a  wall,  he  straightened  out.  A  wall  was  straight,  it 
was  a  good  place  to  straighten  out  against. 

Then,  three  days  later,  came  the  final  blow  in  a  letter  from 
her,  hitting  him  in  his  most  vulnerable  spot.  "The  trouble 
with  you  is  that  you  have  no  character."  And  again,  she 
curtly  reminded  him  of  the  unreturned  letters.  Strange,  how 
a  woman  always  picked  one's  most  vulnerable  spot.  She  took 
the  very  ground  from  under  his  feet.  If  he  had  not  character, 
then  he  had  nothing.  All  his  conscious  life  he  had  been  trying 
to  decide  this  vexing  problem,  as  to  whether  or  not  he  had 
character.  And  now  the  answer  came  from  one  he  had  cherished 
as  his  own  life.  He  collapsed  under  the  blow,  but  his  rage 
and  stubbornness  braced  him,  and  he  hit  out  half  blindly, 
half  deliberately  hi  a  letter,  which  he  had  much  sinister 
pleasure  in  writing. 

"I  am  sorry,"  he  began,  "that  I  cannot  comply  with  your 
request  for  your  letters.  They  are  my  own,  all  the  more 
since  I  have  paid  for  them  with  several  years  of  unswerving 
devotion.  Instead,  I  shall  derive  no  little  pleasure  from 
'consigning  them  to  the  flames'  (that,  I  believe,  is  the  thing 
heroes  in  novels  always  do).  An  excellent  symbol,  isn't  it? 
Love  going  up  in  smoke!  Love  is  so  much  smoke,  isn't  it? 
And  all  of  life  is  so  much  smoke,  too?  There  is  a  curious 
pleasure  in  watching  poor  living  words,  filled  with  one's  heart's 
blood,  wriggling  and  writhing  in  agony,  as  their  flames  ascend 
281 


BABEL 

the  chimney,  and  they  become  dust  and  ashes!  It  is  a 
sentimental  pleasure — I  am  aware  how  unfashionable  such 
pleasure  has  become! — shall  I  be  denied  it?  I  choose  these 
letters  in  chronological  order.  It  is  just  as  well  to  begin  at 
the  root,  to  watch  how  love  grows  and  develops,  'like  a  mystery 
or  a  flower/  as  the  poets  would  say.  And  so  the  ceremony 
begins. 

"There  it  goes — the  first  letter.  ...  A  charred  remnant 
.  .  .  what  does  it  say?  'Your  own,  your  very  own  Winifred/ 
The  second  .  .  .  'I  want  you,  body  and  soul!'  .  .  .  That's  all 
I  could  get  of  it  before  the  flames  sent  the  little  wriggling 
words  scurrying  up  the  chimney.  What  will  the  third  bring 

forth? 'Shall  try  to  be  so  much  to  you  some  day. 

.  .  . '  Gone.  Up  the  chimney.  Just  so  much  smoke!  Once 
more.  '.  .  .  a  hundred  warm  kisses.  .  .  . '  Up  the  chimney, 
my  dear,  the  whole  hundred  of  them!  'If  I  could  see  you  for 
five  little  seconds.  .  .  .'  Up  the  chimney,  in  less  time  than 
that!  Poor  little  writhing  words.  ...  'It  would  be  so  nice 
to  be  in  a  little  flat  with  you.  ...  I  will  cook  you  two  eggs 
every  morning.  ...  I  will  be  your  own  little  slave  if  you 
will  let  me.  ...  I  know  you  are  doing  everything  you  can 
for  me.  ...  I  have  implicit  faith  in  you,  always,  and  you 
must  have  in  me.  .  .  . '  No  more  faith,  no  more  eggs,  eh? 
It  does  not  matter.  The  flames  will  take  all,  including  the 
little  flat.  'No,  I  will  not  regret  anything.  ...  I  am  yours 
forever,  forever,  forever.  .  .  . '  Just  three  seconds  for  three 
forevers  to  go  up  the  chimney.  And  two  more  forevers  go  the 
same  way,  with  an  'Amen!'  for  good  measure.  .  .  ." 

And  more  in  the  same  vein.    Let  these  words,  he  thought, 

look  as  eyes  of  reproach  into  her  soul,  and  make  her  writhe 

even  as  the  bits  of  crumpled  paper  writhed  in  the  flames. 

Responsive  flames  swept  through  his  body,  and  everything 

282 


WITCHES'  CAULDRON 

that  went  under  the  name  of  tender  and  noble  withered.  A 
smile  played  on  his  face,  and  suddenly  catching  sight  of  himself 
in  the  mirror,  he  did  not  recognise  the  smile  as  his  own.  He 
thought  of  Saville's  masks,  and  said  to  himself: 

"I  must  think  out  a  mask  for  myself,  or  at  least  the  idea 
of  a  mask,  a  vision  of  which  I  must  keep  ever  before  me.  It 
must  have  a  definite  purpose  and  goal,  and  I  must  try  to  live 
up  to  it.  Otherwise,  I  shall  go  to  pieces." 

A  reply  from  Winifred  came  a  week  later.  It  was  hardly 
likely  to  add  to  his  peace.  The  gist  of  it  was  contained  in  the 
following  sentences: 

"...  I  feel  that  nothing  I  can  say  will  convince  you  that 
certain  things  are  unjust  both  to  you  and  me.  Your  letters 
have  been  painful  to  mother  and  myself,  and  apparently  I  am 
wholly  to  blame.  Do  you  realise  the  enormity  of  what  you 
have  done?  It  is  down  in  black  and  white.  .  .  .  You  have 
cleared  yourself,  I  stand  convicted.  ...  I  can  only  protest 
sincerely,  again  and  again,  that  I  am  not  to  blame  for  my 
change  of  feeling.  I  did  change  my  mind  every  two  or  three 
months.  I  have  written  whatever  letters  you  remember  in 
complete  honesty.  .  .  .  And  it  is  simply  this — I  have  changed 
my  mind.  You  are  not  responsible  in  any  way.  You  are  the 
same  Gombarov  whom  I  shall  always  like  and  want  to  know 
all  my  life.  But  you  must  understand  that  women  cannot 
help  their  poor,  foolish  minds.  You  must  remember,  too,  that 
when  I  was  struggling  with  my  agonizing  doubts  of  myself 
(not  of  you),  your  letter  came  and  ended  everything.  .  .  . 
Perhaps  you  will  think  this  a  weak  conclusion,  but  can't  we 
always  know  each  other?  That  should  mean  something,  if 
little,  to  you.  It  would  mean  a  great,  great  deal  to  me.  .  .  . 
Please  write  to  me.  ..." 

"In  other  words,"  reflected  Gombarov,  "she  wants  me  to 
283 


BABEL 

stick  to  her  like  that  milksop  Reginald,  as  a  'friend.'  I  was 
right  after  all  in  my  original  diagnosis.  But  this  can  never 
be.  ... " 

Without  replying  to  her  letter,  he  took  up  the  burden  of 
his  lost  world  in  addition  to  his  other  burdens.  His  money 
was  dwindling,  he  was  writing  little  and  earning  little,  his 
mother  went  on  sending  depressing  letters,  his  dreams  of  art 
had  so  far  come  to  nothing,  his  health  was  affected,  he  had 
no  friends  in  London  who  could  help  him,  he  lost  all  confidence, 
everything  seemed  to  hit  him  at  the  same  time,  and  he  did 
not  know  what  to  do.  The  three  witches  at  the  cauldron  had 
surely  cooked  a  nice  stew  for  him. 

Every  day  the  temptation  came  to  him  to  return  to  America 
and  to  take  up  his  job  again  on  the  New  World.  Why  didn't 
he?  A  little  pride,  a  little  stubbornness,  a  little  hope — God 
alone  knew  where  it  came  from — together  contrived  to  keep 
him  there,  and  sometimes  a  word  from  a  mere  stranger.  At 
this  tune  a  young  Irish  acquaintance  from  Philadelphia — a 
lawyer  at  that! — wrote  him: 

"I  could  hug  you  for  having  written,  for,  believe  me,  or  not, 
I  was  seriously  athirst  for  news  of  you — you  and  your  GREAT 
IDEA.  My  dear  Galahad,  don't  you  know  the  Irish  love  a 
bold  man?  .  .  .  Pardon  me,  but  you  have  done  something 
startling!  Your  leaving  a  good  job,  packing  up  your  bag 
and  taking  a  room  in  London  possesses  a  truly  Disraeliesque 
startlingness.  ...  It  is  characteristic  of  a  man  of  talent  to 
hesitate  about  attempting  big  things  of  which  he  is  capable; 
his  discerning  intellect  clearly  perceives  his  difficulties.  Milton 
wasted  (?)  a  youth- time;  we  remember  how  Stevenson  backed 
and  filled,  and  succeeded  in  finally  and  forever  dodging  the 
great  work.  I  feel,  however,  in  my  bones  that  you  are  going 
to  work  out  your  literary  (I  hate  the  blooming  word,  but 
284 


WITCHES'  CAULDRON 

must  use  it,  I  suppose)  salvation  in  your  own  way,  in  your 
own  time.  .  .  .  Now,  my  dear  fellow,  bless  you,  hang  on  by 
your  teeth  .  .  .  and  look  confidently  forward  to  the  inevitable 
dawning  of  your  era  ...  remembering  that  the  night  passeth 
and  strength  and  peace  come  with  the  new  day  and  a  great 
light,  AND  remember  me  as  ever,  Your  friend,  Michael 
O'Connor." 

How  could  he  go  back  in  the  face  of  that?  In  the  face  of 
the  faith  of  others?  A  letter  like  that  from  a  practical  stranger 
acted  on  him  with  the  strength  of  an  omen.  Why  should  it 
come  at  precisely  that  moment,  the  moment  of  his  great  need? 
And  he  unaccountably  drew  from  the  words  a  faith,  mystic  hi 
intensity. 

His  dreams,  too,  had  sometimes  the  same  quality.  There 
was  the  dream  he  had  about  a  fortnight  after  receiving 
Winifred's  last  letter.  He  dreamt  he  was  in  his  room  with 
one  or  two  friends,  whose  identity  he  could  not  establish. 
Suddenly  one  of  them  exclaimed:  "Look  at  that!"  He  looked 
up  and  saw  a  dagger  over  his  door,  point  downwards.  Moved 
by  a  strange  will,  without  the  slightest  hesitation  he  seized 
hold  of  the  sharp  blade  with  a  bare  hand,  and  with  a  super- 
human effort  bent  it  until  it  assumed  the  shape  of  a  sickle. 
On  waking,  he  somehow  felt  that  the  final  betrayal  was  coming 
and  that  he  would  conquer  it. 

That  very  afternoon  a  parcel  arrived.  It  contained  all  the 
things  he  had  given  Winifred,  including  a  bracelet,  a  Venetian 
shawl  and  his  letters.  The  sight  of  these  objects  was  painful. 
Inanimate  objects  had  a  life  of  their  own,  and  these  particular 
objects,  emanated  in  great  waves,  an  aroma  of  tender  associa- 
tions. He  did  not  want  these  things  back.  What  was  he  to 
do  with  them?  He  could  not  give  them  away,  nor  sell  them. 
And,  surely,  he  could  not  keep  them  in  his  room.  There 
285 


BABEL 

was  a  power  of  disruption  in  them,  and  in  their  presence  he 
felt  himself  to  be  just  such  a  parcel  of  fragments,  just  such  a 
collection  of  memories  and  associations.  He  must  return 
them.  He  must  beg  her  to  do  just  this  one  thing:  accept  them 
and  keep  them  as  souvenirs  of  their  former  tenderness.  He 
really  wanted  her  to  have  them.  They  could  not  possibly 
belong  to  anyone  else.  There  was  no  ulterior  motive  in  this. 
Involuntarily,  on  top  of  this,  came  another  thought,  which, 
not  to  be  repressed,  brought  a  gloating  smile  to  his  face,  the 
same  smile  he  had  caught  in  the  mirror  while  burning  the 
letters.  This  thought  ran:  "You  know  well  enough  why 
you  want  her  to  have  these  things.  You  know  their  painful 
effect  on  you.  And  you'd  rather  she  suffered  this  instead  of 
yourself.  You  may  say,  she  does  not  care  for  you,  therefore 
she  will  not  suffer  at  the  sight  of  these  things.  But  you  know 
well  enough  that  she  does  love  you,  only  she  had  not  the 
strength  to  face  circumstances.  .  .  .  Never  mind,  the  presence 
of  these  things  is  sure  to  cause  her  pain  hi  their  constant 
reminder  of  you.  Walking  with  another  lover  in  the  cool 
of  an  evening,  with  that  shawl  round  her  shoulders,  a  moment 
is  sure  to  come  in  the  midst  of  her  happiness,  when  she  will  say 
to  herself:  'I  have  betrayed  someone  who  has  loved  me  so!' " 
In  moments  of  detachment  he  analyzed  this  contradiction  in 
himself,  and  understood  how  thwarted  nobility  becomes  malice, 
creative  fires  destructive,  and  beauty  a  gargoyle. 

Three  days  later  a  letter  arrived,  which  put  an  end  to  his 
fluctuations.  Addressed  in  Mrs.  Gwynne's  hand,  it  was  post- 
marked Venice.  The  letter  began  by  expressing  the  hope 
that  the  parcel  despatched  from  Paris  had  reached  him,  and 
went  on: 

"I  have  been  offered  a  good  position  in  New  York,  and  we 
are  now  on  our  way  there,  via  Naples.  We  shall  be  in  Naples 
286 


WITCHES'  CAULDRON 

in  a  month,  and  we  can  be  reached  care  of  the  American 
Express  Company.  If  there  is  ever  anything  I  can  do  for  you, 
let  me  hear  from  you.  I  am  still,  Your  friend,  Priscilla 
Gwynne." 

This  news,  if  it  stunned  him,  gave  him  also  a  new  will,  fired 
him  with  new  desire.  And  he  sat  down  to  commit  a  superb 
folly,  folly  of  follies.  The  fact  that  an  address  was  deliberately 
given  did  not  escape  him.  He  sat  before  his  paper  and  wrote 
and  wrote,  passionately  and  eloquently,  firmly  yet  tenderly, 
logically  yet  lyrically.  He  was  inspired  with  desperation.  It 
would  be  his  final  appeal.  And  with  true  diplomacy  he  wrote 
to  her  mother,  too.  They  were  both  long  letters.  He  also 
packed  the  bracelet  carefully  and  sent  it  to  Naples,  by 
registered  post.  Next  day  he  sent  two  more  letters,  one  to  each 
of  them.  He  begged  Winifred  not  to  make  her  decision 
precipitately,  but  to  think  it  over  carefully  and  weigh  all  the 
considerations,  pro  and  con,  which  he  had  placed  before  her. 

Then  he  waited  for  the  weeks  to  pass,  and,  while  waiting, 
he  neither  hoped  any  longer  nor  despaired.  At  all  events,  he 
had  done  all  he  could,  and  now  he  was  prepared  for  anything 
and  everything.  And  he  just  waited,  waited.  .  .  . 

Life  is  full  of  taunts.  About  this  time  he  received  a  letter 
from  a  former  colleague  on  the  New  World,  who  wrote  him 
congratulating  him  on  his  rumoured  marriage.  "If  it  is  true 
that  I  am  married,"  he  wrote  back,  "then  it  is  also  true  that  I 
am  a  bigamist.  When  the  Turkish-Bulgarian  war  is  over,  I 
intend  going  to  Turkey,  where  a  man  may  marry  as  many 
wives  as  he  pleases,  without  anyone  losing  sleep  over  it  but  the 
husband."  Thus  he  wrote  in  his  malice  and  bitterness,  and 
sat  down  to  his  work,  which  he  had  latterly  neglected.  And 
he  waited  for  the  weeks  to  pass,  for  the  witches'  stew  to  be 
unstewed.  .  .  . 

287 


CHAPTER  VIII:     ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

"Verily  I  say  unto  you,  That  the 
Publicans  and  the  harlots  go  into 
the  kingdom  of  God  before  you," 
— ST.  MATTHEW,  xxi:  31. 

"The  stone  which  the  builders  re- 
jected, the  same  is  to  become  the 
head  of  the  corner."  IBID.  42. 

REFLECTIONS    IN   PICCADILLY 

MAN  must  have  company,  though  he  ever  remain  a  solitary 
in  its  midst.  Gombarov  had,  by  now,  acquired  many  acquaint- 
ances among  painters  and  writers.  He  saw,  at  intervals, 
Bagg  and  Rodd,  Hylas  and  Heracles,  and  made  friends  with 
Douglass,  whom  he  liked  for  his  blunt,  simple  ways.  He 
sometimes  went  to  the  Tuesday  evenings  of  the  Irish  poet, 
Patrick  Raftery,  who,  boyish-looking  in  spite  of  his  forty-five 
years,  held  forth  rhythmically  and  decoratively  before  his 
visitors,  chiefly  young  aspirants,  in  his  small  Bloomsbury 
apartments,  amid  books,  pictures,  hanging  draperies  and  tall 
ceremonial  candles,  whose  serene  light,  mingling  with  cigarette 
smoke,  gave  picturesque  if  subdued  effects  to  the  semi-circle 
of  reclining  figures  facing  the  poet,  endowed  the  still-lifes 
with  a  rich  soft  glow  and  sent  perpendicular  glints  down  the 
bottles  of  red  and  white  wine,  cherry  brandy  and  benedictine 
standing  on  a  small  table  in  one  corner  of  the  room.  All  this 
was  successfully  designed  to  create  an  artistic  island  haven 
amid  the  immense  turbulences  of  murky  London  life.  No 
potential  artist  was  refused  entrance  here,  no  undesirable 
288 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

admitted  twice.  Gombarov  could  for  once  in  his  life  crow  over 
the  multi-millionaire,  who,  unless  he  was  a  discriminating  art 
patron,  could  no  more  effect  an  entrance  here  than  the  rich 
man  get  past  the  toll-stile  of  St.  Peter. 

Though,  thank  God,  they  eschewed  politics  and  economics, 
the  company  of  artists  did  not  always  content  him.  Art  talk 
of  the  coteries,  which  were  beginning  to  mark  London  like 
some  spotted  beast,  was  apt  to  weary  one.  It  was  not  enough 
to  eat  eternally  of  one  dish,  however  fastidious,  and  he 
hungered  for  life,  the  many-faceted  adventure  of  larger  humani- 
ties. During  those  many  weeks  of  waiting  for  a  reply  from 
Winifred  this  craving  became  a  sharp  blade,  aimlessly  swinging 
to  get  within  the  reach  of  the  spiritual  bread  and  meat  of  life. 

How  was  a  stranger  in  London  to  find  life?  Life,  if  sought 
and  snatched  at,  was  a  harlot,  at  the  beck  and  call  of  a  stout 
purse.  Still,  a  hungry  man  is  fascinated  by  food  in  shop- 
windows,  and  a  man  hungering  for  life  must  often  be  content 
with  the  mere  observation  of  potential  feasts  in  Life's  shop- 
windows.  He  usually  found  himself  wandering  in  Piccadilly 
Circus.  In  this  triangle,  shaped  like  a  familiar  symbol  in 
Egyptian  cuneiforms,  was  the  sterile  harlot  womb  of  London. 
Where,  then,  was  London's  heart?  Wiseacres  would  tell  you 
that  it  beat  with  a  steady  tremulousness  within  the  inaccessible 
walls  of  the  Bank  of  England  and  in  the  surrounding  regions 
of  the  city,  abundant  with  huge  coiling  arteries. 

Round  and  round  he  walked,  from  Leicester  Square,  turning 
the  sharp  angle  at  the  Pavilion,  up  Shaftesbury  Avenue  and 
down  Wardour  Street,  back  to  Leicester  Square;  then  the 
same  round  again,  meeting  the  same  faces  of  women  and  girls 
with  eyes  which  silently  beckoned  him.  He  observed  the  more 
wistful  of  them,  dressed  unobtrusively,  unrecognisable  for 
what  they  were  but  for  their  slow,  erect  walk  and  those 
289 


BABEL 

beckoning  eyes.  They  were  different  from  the  flaunting  types 
he  had  seen  in  the  streets  of  New  York,  Rome  and  Naples, 
and  not  so  far  different  from  the  respectable  women  with  whom 
they  mingled  on  the  pavements. 

"Here  am  I,"  he  grimly  reflected,  "walking  round  and 
round,  just  like  one  of  them.  In  what  way  am  I  really  different 
from  them?  They  sell  their  bodies,  I  sell  my  brain,  and  for  the 
same  reason.  We  must  live.  I  am,  perhaps,  the  worse 
offender.  And  I  am  sure,  they  are  better  paid.  ..." 

Some  of  them,  tall,  shapely  and  handsome,  looked  as  if 
they  would  have  made  splendid  wives  and  mothers.  What 
drove  them  to  it?  Well,  what  drove  him  to  do  hack  work? 
Was  he  making  a  farfetched  analogy  between  venal  newspaper 
work,  as  he  remembered  it  on  the  New  World  and  the  vocation 
of  these  poor  girls?  He  recalled  those  days,  and  the  demands 
his  work  had  made  on  his  mind  and  soul,  even  though,  as  in 
prostitution,  it  gave  a  certain  amount  of  personal  freedom. 
You  gave  the  best  of  your  brain  for  a  consideration,  and  your 
brain,  such  as  it  was,  was  at  the  service  of  the  proprietor 
and  the  public.  You  had  to  follow  the  policy  of  the  house, 
and  if  you  had  any  thoughts  of  your  own  it  was  for  you  to 
keep  them  to  yourself.  It  was  not  uncommon  for  an  editorial 
writer  to  abandon  a  newspaper  having  a  certain  political  policy 
and  to  transfer  his  employment  for  a  better  salary,  to  a 
newspaper  having  a  diametrically  opposite  policy  and  to  write 
convincingly  and  approvingly  of  what  he  had  formerly  written 
equally  convincingly  and  disapprovingly.  And  always,  in  the 
end,  youth  displaced  the  superannuated.  No  profession,  barring 
prostitution,  contained  so  many  cynics  as  journalism.  This  is 
not  to  speak  against  cynicism,  which  is  profoundly  misunder- 
stood by  the  pseudo-optimistic  who,  with  Pangloss,  insist  on 
regarding  this  as  the  best  possible  of  all  worlds.  For  cynicism, 
290 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

at  its  best,  is  in  its  way  a  philosophy,  a  stoical  hardening  of 
oneself  to  an  acceptance  of  things  as  they  are.  It  is  a  protective 
colouring,  a  preparation  to  meet  what  blows  may  come  and 
thus  soften  them.  If,  after  a  day's  work,  you  have  but  a 
grain  of  idealism  left  in  you,  you  can  indulge  in  it,  as  Gombarov 
had  done,  by  sitting  down  hi  your  own  little  room  and  writing 
a  story  or  poem,  or  what  you  will,  after  your  own  heart. 
Thus,  he  reflected,  a  prostitute,  after  her  day's  work,  may 
indulge  in  a  lover,  reserving  for  him  what  sweetness  is  left  in 
her. 

As  he  thought  these  thoughts,  he  was  reminded  that  he  had 
not  yet  learnt  to  accept  life  as  it  was,  and  it  occurred  to  him 
that  he  would  like  to  know  these  women  and  talk  to  them,  and 
learn  their  secret,  which  might  help  him  to  face  life  with  the 
same  composure  and  nonchalance. 

MOLLY 

No  sooner  had  this  thought  become  a  full-grown,  fixed  reso- 
lution, than  he  set  out  to  put  it  into  practice.  One  evening, 
as  he  went  his  usual  rounds,  he  was  attracted  by  a  fair,  slen- 
der, neat-ankled  girl.  She  had  a  winsome  if  not  exactly  pretty 
face,  broad  across  the  eyes,  and  a  large,  if  unobtrusive  mouth, 
the  whole  face  a  mask  of  good  nature.  She  was  standing 
under  the  awning  of  the  Pavilion,  and  her  face  was  in  the 
shadow  of  the  broad  brim  of  her  hat,  so  that  an  observer 
caught  a  sense  of  these  features,  veiled  by  a  smile,  rather  than 
the  features  themselves,  and  this  intensified  the  impression  of 
her  attraction.  He  walked  past  her  several  times,  and  finally 
tipped  his  hat. 

"Good  evening!"  she  returned  his  greeting. 

Shyly  facing  her,  he  was  at  a  loss  for  words,  and  as  she 
waited  for  him  to  speak,  he  finally  blurted  out: 
291 


BABEL 

"Look  here,  I  don't  want  to  go  home  with  you.  But  will 
you  come  and  have  dinner  with  me?  I'd  like  someone  to 
talk  to." 

"I  don't  mind,  honey!"  she  replied,  and  took  his  arm. 

"Where  shall  we  go?"  he  asked. 

"Well,  you  don't  look  like  a  multi-millionaire.  You  had 
better  come  along  with  me  to  the  place  I  usually  go  to.  The 
waitress  is  my  friend,  and  she'll  treat  us  properly." 

"That  will  suit  me  fine!" 

"You  are  an  artist,  aren't  you?"  she  asked,  as  they  walked 
on,  arm  hi  arm. 

"A  sort  of  one.  I'm  a  scribbler,  which  is  hardly  better 
than  a  beggar." 

"Never  mind,  boy,  you'll  get  along.  I'm  sure  you're  clever, 
and  have  a  lot  of  will.  You're  a  Jew  boy?" 

"Yes,"  he  said,  astonished. 

"Oh,  you'll  get  on!"  she  repeated  confidently,  giving  his 
arm  a  squeeze.  "Here  we  are!" — and  they  paused  before  a 
little  restaurant  in  the  proximity  of  Leicester  Square.  "Let's 
go  upstairs,  boy!"  she  said,  releasing  his  arm,  and  leading 
the  way  in. 

They  ran  the  gauntlet  of  tables,  all  apparently  occupied  by 
girls  of  Molly's  vocation,  who  eyed  the  newcomers  with  pro- 
fessional interest.  Molly  was  well-known  there,  judging  by 
the  nods  she  received.  They  ascended  the  stairs  and 
found  themselves  in  a  long  narrow  room,  less  crowded  than 
below. 

As  they  faced  one  another  across  a  corner  table  by  the 
window,  what  astonished  him  was  the  child-like  expression 
of  his  companion's  face,  intensified  by  a  pouting  smile,  as  she 
asked,  pleadingly: 

"May  I  have  a  Guinness,  boy?" 
292 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

She  looked  like  a  child  pleading  for  a  bar  of  chocolate. 

"Of  course!"  he  laughed.  "Here,  waitress,  two  Guinness, 
please!  What  will  you  have  to  eat?" 

"It  will  be  good  to  have  something  hot!"  and  she  ordered 
soup  and  chops.  "My  hands  are  quite  cold!"  She  extended 
her  hands  to  him. 

"You  have  nice  hands,  child,"  he  said,  rubbing  and  stroking 
them.  "But  I  don't  know  your  name  yet!" 

"Molly,"  she  replied.    "Your  hands  are  nice,  too!" 

"How  old  are  you,  Molly?" 

"Twenty-five,  boy." 

"One  wouldn't  think  it,  to  look  at  you." 

"No,  boy,  but  I've  had  a  heap  of  trouble.  Have  a  baby 
girl  to  take  care  of,  too.  About  eighteen  months  old.  Of 
course,  I  can't  think  of  keeping  it  with  me!" 

"Then  you  are  married?" 

"No,  boy.  Got  let  down.  Married  some  one  else.  Nine 
girls  out  of  ten  in  this  place  will  tell  you  the  same  story.  It's 
a  way  men  have  with  a  girl.  They  are  all  alike!" 

"Sometimes  it  happens  the  other  way  about,"  observed 
Gombarov.  "But  I  don't  understand  anybody  wanting  to 
chuck  you.  You'd  make  a  nice  little  wife  to  anybody.  In 
different  circumstances,  I  might  kidnap  you  myself!" 

"That's  what  they  all  say,  boy.  But  there  it  is,  myself 
and  a  kiddie  to  look  after.  There's  the  landlady,  too,  who 
takes  the  very  skin  of  girls  the  likes  of  us.  Oh,  yes,"  she 
added  between  gulps  of  Guinness,  "we  might  go  into  a  work- 
shop or  the  service,  if  they'll  have  us,  and  work  off  our  hands 
and  walk  off  our  feet,  without  getting  so  much  as  a  thank 
you!  Or  we  might  marry  some  bloke,  and  live  in  a  suburban 
little  home  and  spend  our  time  looking  out  of  the  window, 
waiting  for  something  to  turn  up.  No,  boy,  not  for  me,  thank 

293 


BABEL 

you.    Besides" — she  laughed  softly — "maybe,  it  was  all  pre- 
ordained, and  I  am  paying  out  my  Karma.  .  .  ." 

"Paying  out  your  what?" 

"My  Karma.  I  once  met  a  chap  like  yourself,  who  just 
wanted  to  stand  me  dinner  and  have  a  chat.  He  put  the 
notion  in  my  head.  He  was  a  Theosophist,  and  it  was  his 
notion  that  in  my  previous  existence  I  must  have  been  a  man 
and  done  the  dirty  on  a  girl,  promised  to  marry  her,  then 
let  her  down — with  a  kiddie,  too! — and  now  I've  been  turned 
into  a  girl  so  I  might  be  paid  out  in  the  same  coin — just  to 
taste  what  it  was  like!" 

"If  that's  true,"  said  Gombarov,  "then  I  must  have  led 
the  very  devil  of  a  life  in  my  previous  existence,  judging  by 
the  way  I  am  paying  for  it.  I  must  have  been  a  multi-mil- 
lionaire who  took  the  bread  out  of  the  mouths  of  the  poor, 
and  at  the  same  time  I  must  have  been  a  fascinating  female 
who  led  a  young  man  a  fearful  song  and  dance." 

"So  that's  your  trouble,  boy?  Let  me  tell  you  no  girl  is 
worth  it.  If  she  does  that,  she  don't  love  you!  Well,  maybe, 
the  Theosophist  chap  was  right.  He  was  in  dead  earnest  and 
told  me  heaps  of  facts,  which  he  said  was  all  in  books  and 
true.  To  tell  you  the  honest  truth,  I  often  feel  that  if  I  were 
a  young  man,  I'd  do  just  that  sort  of  thing,  that's  been  done 
to  me,  even  now — yes,  boy,  life  is  sure  enough  a  funny  mess! 
.  .  .  What's  your  name?" 

"Call  me  John,  if  you  like!" 

"Funny,  that's  my  boy's  name!" 

"So  you  have  a  boy?" 

"Yes.  Even  in  my  business,  nearly  every  girl  has  her  own 
boy.  You've  got  to  love  someone,  haven't  you?  Can't  be 
pretending  all  the  time,  can  you?" 

"But  there's  your  John!    He  isn't  satisfied,  is  he?" 
294 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

"He  wants  me  to  quit  it,  but  he  can't  support  both  kiddie 
and  me,  so  we  must  wait.  He  knows  I  love  him,  and  there's 
one  little  part  of  me  that's  all  his  own" — and  she  pointed  to 
her  left  breast — "there's  my  heart,  and  I  let  no  man  ever 
touch  it  but  John." 

"That  about  describes  my  own  case,"  reflected  Gombarov 
to  himself.  "When  my  hack  Work  is  done,  I  sit  down  and 
try  to  do  something  that  is  all  my  own,  for  art's  sake  alone, 
something  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  commerce.  And  that 
amounts  to  the  same  thing.  I  am  acting  just  as  this  girl  does." 
A  peculiar  calm,  even  contentment,  descended  on  him  from 
being  with  this  girl. 

"Go  on,  Molly,  tell  me  more  about  yourself,"  he  said. 

"I  don't  know  why  I  am  telling  you  all  this,  except  that 
you  are  one  of  those  people  one  tells  things  to  naturally." 

"Yes,  Molly,  I  sometimes  think  I  have  the  nature  of  a 
father  confessor.  But  tell  me:  you  can't  always  go  on  like 
this!  Don't  you  ever  think  of  the  future?" 

"Don't!  Don't!"  She  shut  her  eyes  with  her  hands. 
"Don't  talk  to  me  about  that!  We  daren't  think  of  the 
future.  .  .  ."  She  took  her  hands  from  her  eyes.  "Look  out- 
side. It  is  raining  and  sleeting.  It  is  cold.  Our  stockings 
are  thin.  Our  necks  are  bare.  We  walk  for  hours  through 
sleet,  rain  and  fog.  Waiting  for  someone  to  pick  us  up. 
Sometimes  we  are  lucky  to  get  a  gentleman.  Sometimes  the 
pig  thinks  he's  bought  us  for  a  miserable  sovereign.  Some- 
times it's  nobody!  And  there's  kiddie  always  to  think  of. 
And  fine  clothes  cost  money!  A  dowdy  girl  has  no  chance 
at  all.  A  man  won't  look  at  a  girl  unless  she  has  silk  stock- 
ings. .  .  .  We  can  only  think  of  the  present.  To-morrow  has 
to  take  care  of  itself." 


295 


BABEL 

ANITA 

There  was  a  commotion  at  the  next  table.  A  girl  who  had 
just  come  in  sat  down  at  the  table  with  four  others,  and  was 
crying.  Her  pals  were  trying  to  cheer  her  up. 

"Buck  up,  Nitty!" 

"Don't  cry,  honey!" 

"Here's  a  cup  of  chocolate  for  you,  pet!" 

"There's  a  dear,"  said  the  fourth,  taking  up  the  girl's  hand- 
kerchief and  wiping  her  tears. 

She  now  sat  up  and  tried  to  smile.  Gombarov  noted  her 
jet  black  hair  and  dark  eyes,  which,  deep  and  lustrous,  glowed 
like  liquid  fire  within  their  sockets.  She  had  the  strangeness 
and  expressiveness  of  one  who  had  suffered  much,  and  had 
lost  something  of  her  beauty  through  suffering.  Touched  by 
the  solicitude  the  others  showed  for  her,  Gombarov  remarked 
upon  this  to  his  companion. 

"We  hate  to  see  a  girl  in  trouble,"  said  Molly.  "And 
trouble  may  strike  any  of  us  at  any  time.  Anita — that's  her 
name — was  a  very  pretty  girl  once.  .  .  ."  And  Molly  lapsed 
into  a  sullen  silence. 

"Would  it  be  too  much  to  ask  you  what  her  trouble 
is?" 

Molly  did  not  answer  at  once. 

"I  don't  know  whether  it  would  be  right  to  tell,"  she  said 
at  last.  "She  is  being  sorry  now."  Molly  looked  at  Gom- 
barov, long  and  searchingly.  "I  think  I  can  trust  you,"  she 
went  on.  "But  heaven  help  you,  if  you  tell.  I  wouldn't  tell 
you,  if  you  weren't  a  Jew  boy,  and  I  didn't  like  you." 

The  reasons  for  her  statement  soon  became  clear.  She 
drew  herself  across  the  table,  and  spoke  in  whispers: 

"She  was  such  a  pretty  girl  once,  the  oldest  of  her  family, 
296 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

with  a  widowed  mother  and  some  kiddies  to  look  after.  About 
three  years  ago  she  went  out  looking  for  a  job,  in  the  reviews 
and  the  halls.  She  had  a  good  voice  then — and  there  were 
her  good  looks.  When  the  managers  saw  her,  they  jumped 
at  her,  you  bet,  and  smacked  their  lips,  you  may  be  sure. 
Of  course,  they'd  engage  her,  give  her  a  good  job  too,  if  she 
would — well,  you  know!  That's  how  some  girls  get  on  the 
stage.  Not  that  she  hadn't  talent,  but  it  wasn't  that  that 
counted  with  those  goats.  It's  the  old  story,  boy.  Nitty 
wouldn't — not  at  first!  Besides,  she  had  a  young  man  of 
her  own,  and  he  getting  only  two  pound  ten  a  week.  But  there 
was  the  large  family,  mostly  kiddies.  Wish  people  wouldn't 
breed  so!  What  could  Nitty  do  but  give  in  at  last?  The 
first  goat  gave  her  a  job  starting  at  five  per.  After  a  bit 
another  pretty  girl  showed  up  on  the  scene,  and  by  then  he 
had  had  his  fill  of  Nitty,  and  Nitty  passed  into  the  hands 
of  Goat  Number  Two.  She  passed  like  that  through  several 
pairs  of  hands,  and  the  last  one  gave  her  something  worse 
than  a  baby.  He  happened  to  be  a  Jew,  and  now  that  Nitty 
is  on  the  street,  she  has  vowed  that  she'd  pass  it  on  to  every 
Jew  she  comes  across — there,  now  you  know  why  I've  told 
you!" 

"The  brutes!"  exclaimed  Gombarov.  "A  horrible  tale! 
And  we  call  ourselves  civilised.  Poor  little  thing!  Savages 
would  have  been  kinder." 

"You  may  well  say  that.  .  .  .  She  is  being  sorry  now.  But 
it  won't  last.  One  time  she  would  come  up  to  me  and  say: 
'You  think  me  a  beast,  don't  you?  Well,  perhaps  I  ami  I 
do  feel  sorry  for  them  afterwards,  but  at  the  time  I  simply 
can't  help  myself,  and  I  have  a  great  joy,  my  only  joy.  Yes, 
Molly,  I  know  I'm  going  to  hell!'  Another  time,  she'd  get 
into  a  fit,  and  just  yell:  'I  don't  care!  I  don't  care!  I  shall 
297 


BABEL 

send  the  whole  lot  of  them  to  hell,  before  I  go  there 
myself!'" 

Gombarov  looked  at  Anita  with  a  new  interest,  not  without 
a  shudder.  Her  face  was  pale,  and  an  intense  flame  showing 
in  her  eyes  appeared  to  be  consuming  her.  "Poor  little 
Anita!"  he  thought.  "Life  has  not  treated  you  too  well,  and 
you  look  but  a  child,  a  poor,  hurt  child! "  Who  was  to  blame? 
Oh,  the  unfathomable  cruelty  of  a  pitiless  world,  and  oh,  the 
infinite  malice  of  injured  and  humiliated  humanity!  Here, 
in  Anita,  once  love  had  dwelt.  Had  she  not  sacrificed  herself 
and  her  own  dear  one  for  the  poor  children  of  her  hapless 
family?  What  was  his  own  sacrifice  compared  with  hers? 
And  now,  in  her  last  gasp,  she  was  turning  on  a  vulture  world, 
and  even  while  she  offered  her  rotting  carcass  to  pitiless  beaks, 
she  was  yet  sufficiently  aware  that  she  was  carrying  retribu- 
tion to  a  world  that  knew  no  pity.  Who  was  to  blame? 

"Molly,"  said  Gombarov,  with  a  sudden  impulse,  "will  you 
promise  to  do  me  a  favor?" 

"What  is  it,  John?" 

"I  am  not  very  well  off.  But  I  happen  to  have  a  sovereign 
in  my  pocket.  Will  you  give  it  to  Anita  when  I'm  not  here, 
and  tell  her  that  it  came  from  a  Jew,  who  saw  her  and  took 
a  fancy  to  her?  Give  her  any  explanation  you  like,  so  she 
needn't  know  that  you  told  me  anything.  Will  you  do  that 
for  me?" 

"Look  here,  boy,  don't  be  foolish,  if  you  can't  afford  it.  ... 
Still,  111  do  it,  if  you  like.  You're  a  queer  one!" 

"That's  a  dear,  Molly!"  and  he  gave  her  the  sovereign. 

"Never  fear,"  she  said,  to  allay  any  suspicions  he  might 
have  of  Anita  not  getting  the  money.  "Goodness  knows,  we 
are  heartless  enough,  but  we  are  not  selfish!" 

298 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 


KATHLEEN 

The  waitress  had  gone  out  to  the  nearest  public  house  to 
fetch  two  more  bottles  of  Guinness,  when  in  came  dancing 
a  hilarious  girl,  holding  her  skirts  up  at  her  sides  and  dis- 
playing the  tempestuous  whiteness  of  her  laced  and  frilled 
underthings.  She  seemed  wholly  oblivious  to  the  scrutiny 
of  amused  eyes,  and  laughing,  as  if  she  would  never  stop, 
danced  straight  upon  Molly.  Her  slender,  black-stockinged 
legs,  showing  above  her  small,  well-rounded  knees,  gave  her 
the  appearance  of  a  young  girl.  Rebellious  wisps  of  fair 
hair  stuck  out  from  under  a  green  tam-o'-shanter,  and  her 
grey-blue  eyes  danced  as  nimbly  as  her  girlish  legs.  She 
controlled  herself  sufficiently  to  exclaim: 

"Oh,  Moll!" 

"Hello,  Kath!     What's  up?" 

Once  more  she  burst  out  laughing,  and  again  repeated: 

"Oh,  Moll!" 

"You've  been  up  to  pranks  again,  I  see,"  laughed  Molly, 
infected  by  her  friend's  mood. 

"It's  the  funniest  yet,"  said  Kathleen,  planting  herself  in 
a  chair,  and  suddenly  restraining  herself  as  she  looked  at 
Gombarov. 

"Go  on,  out  with  it!"  said  Molly.  "He's  all  right!  Kath- 
leen— a  friend!"  she  introduced  them. 

"Yes,  do  go  on!"  urged  Gombarov,  amused  by  the  alluring 
little  figure. 

But  Kathleen  gave  way  to  another  fit  of  laughter. 

"What's  one  to  do  with  her?  She's  always  like  that!  Just 
a  kid!"  said  Molly. 

"Bless  you,  and  it's  forgiving  you  must  be  to  me,"  said 
Kathleen,  at  last,  with  a  delicious  touch  of  Irish.  "But  it's 
299 


BABEL 

too  funny  for  words.  Do  you  remember  the  young  blood, 
that  was  all  sweetness  and  honey  on  me  and  for  getting  off 
with  me  last  night?" 

"You  mean  the  pale  duffer  with  the  shining  topper  and 
white  shirt-front  and  a  bit  of  hedge  on  his  upper  lip?" 

"The  very  same.  Well,  there  was  he  getting  properly 
drunk,  and  there  was  I  jumping  into  a  taxi  with  him  and 
taking  him  to  Mrs.  Ripp's.  He  was  as  droll  as  droll,  taking 
off  his  trimmings  in  a  strange  fashion,  like  an  undertaker 
would  be  preparing  himself  for  his  own  funeral,  and  dropping 
off  into  a  deep  sleep  with  nothing  but  a  vest  itself  and  a 
topper  on  the  head  of  him.  Blowing  his  nose  trumpet,  too,  he 
was  like  fury.  You'd  think  he  was  the  big  elephant  at  the 
Zoo.  There  was  Reggie  boy  expecting  me,  you'd  suppose, 
to  be  sitting  up  for  him  till  morning,  until  his  own  royal  high- 
ness should  wake,  and  to  find  his  own  little  humble  slave 
there  by  his  side,  with  his  bacon  and  eggs.  There  was  I 
lying  and  thinking  and  worrying  as  to  what  to  do,  until  a 
brilliant  idea  was  born  in  me  foolish  little  brain." 

"You  with  your  brilliant  ideas  1"  interrupted  Molly. 

"Darling,  wait  till  you  hear.  So  up  I  jumps  out  of  bed, 
and  puts  on  me  things.  And  up  I  go,  gathering  all  of  Reggie's 
things  after,  and  doing  them  up  in  a  neat  little  parcel,  all 
but  the  topper  and  the  undervest  he  had  on,  and  his  socks  and 
his  shoes.  Then  it's  down  stairs  with  them,  and  into  a  taxi, 
hugging  his  own  royal  highness 's  uniform.  But  I'm  all  for 
the  proprieties  and  for  being  kind  to  a  man,  so  I  pinned  a  little 
billet-doux  on  his  pillow,  that  said:  'I'm  the  one,  your  own 
darling,  would  like  to  be  seeing  you  in  the  morning,  with  your 
shining  crown  and  silken  vest  and  dear  little  socks  on,  holding 
a  kingly  scepter  in  your  noble  hand.' " 
300 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

"What  will  Mrs.  Ripp  say?"  asked  Molly,  when  the  laughter 
had  subsided. 

"Oh,  Mrs.  Ripp!  First  thing  in  the  morning  there  does  be  a 
knocking  on  me  door,  and  me  sleeping  peacefully  in  me  own 
little  flat,  and  waking  from  me  beauty  sleep,  and  there,  as 
large  as  life,  is  the  parcel  on  the  chair,  looking  at  me,  and 
I  laughing  till  me  sides  would  burst.  Up  I  jumps  out  of 
bed,  and  just  as  I  am,  in  me  linen  and  lace,  grabs  up  the  par- 
cel and  opens  the  door  to  a  cherub  of  a  boy.  Says  I  to  him: 
'And  it's  you  that's  come  from  Mrs.  Ripp  for  to  be  taking  a 
parcel  back  to  her?'  And  he  hands  me  a  note  from  herself, 
to  say  she  had  seventy  fits  to  see  Reggie  come  down  at  seven 
in  the  morning  in  his  high  hat  and  blanket,  like  a  poor  ship- 
wrecked man,  all  excited-like,  waving  me  billet-doux  in  one 
hand,  his  ebony  stick  in  the  other,  the  very  Archangel  Gabriel 
himself  in  person,  and  poor  Mrs.  Ripp  never  setting  her 
darling  eyes  on  him  before!  And  it's  after  me  reading  the 
note  and  laughing  and  dancing  before  the  wondering  lad,  in 
me  linen  and  lace,  that  I  handed  him  the  parcel  and  a  bob 
for  his  trouble  and  told  him  to  hustle  as  quick  as  he  ever 
could  back  to  Mrs.  Ripp.  .  .  .  But  sure,  I  would  be  giving 
the  sight  of  me  two  eyes  to  see  Reggie  through  the  keyhole 
in  the  morning,  and  him  with  his  shining  crown,  his  under- 
vest  and  socks,  and  holding  a  kingly  scepter  in  his  noble 
hand.  .  .  ." 

While  Kathleen  was  recounting  her  adventure,  in  her  best 
Abbey  Theatre  manner,  her  listeners  frequently  interrupted 
her  with  tearful  laughter. 

"Have  a  Guinness,  Kathleen?"  asked  Gombarov. 

"I  don't  mind  if  I  do,  and  it's  right  kind  of  you!" 

"I  must  be  going,"  said  Molly,  and  seeing  a  question  on 
301 


BABEL 

her  host's  face,  she  said:  "I'm  here  almost  every  day  about 
four,  if  you  care  to  look  in.  Good-bye,  boy!"  She  rose  and 
shook  his  hand.  "So  long,  Kathl  May  see  you  later." 

"You  are  a  cheerful  little  person,  Kathleen!"  he  began. 

"What's  the  use  of  a  moaning  and  a  groaning,  and  a  worry- 
ing and  a  bothering?" 

He  manoeuvred  her  round  to  a  serious  mood  and  succeeded 
in  getting  her  to  tell  about  herself.  He  was  astonished  to 
find  her  dropping  her  quaint  manner  of  speaking,  except  when 
she  burst  into  her  fits  of  humour.  This  was  explained  by  the 
fact  that  she  was  born  in  the  West  of  Ireland,  but  was  edu- 
cated in  a  convent  school  near  Dublin.  It  was  a  kind  of  rever- 
sion to  her  early  environment.  She  knew  something  about  Irish 
literature  and  had  seen  Synge's  plays  acted.  When  she 
was  nineteen — she  was  but  twenty-four  now — she  married  an 
Anglo-Indian  officer  and  went  out  to  India  with  him,  spending 
much  of  her  time  between  Burma  and  Ceylon.  He  turned  out 
a  brute,  and  after  three  years  of  married  life,  during  which, 
for  a  mere  trifle,  he  once  beat  her  while  in  pregnancy,  causing 
a  miscarriage,  she  took  advantage  of  a  holiday  in  England  to 
escape  from  bondage. 

She,  a  gay,  wild  thing,  humorously  recollected  the  social 
functions  held  by  officers'  wives,  and  how  she  scandalised 
them  by  her  unconventional  behaviour  and  piquant  tales: 

"As  I  saw  them  there  with  their  armoured  corsets  and  stays 
and  stiff  manners,  I  used  to  delight  in  telling  them  of  how  I 
once  went  riding  with  my  husband  in  the  jungle,  and  how  it 
used  to  get  so  hot  that  I  would  remove  my  frock  and  go  on 
riding  my  horse  just  in  my  undies,  and  how  the  monkeys  and 
the  wild  birds  and  the  serpents  would  stare  at  me  just  as 
men  might  in  Piccadilly  1" 

In  London,  at  last,  while  her  husband  was  away,  she  took 
302 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

some  of  her  personal  belongings  and  a  few  odds  and  ends  of 
jewelry,  crossed  Westminster  Bridge  one  night  to  "digs"  in 
Lambeth  Road,  getting  the  cabby  to  stop  long  enough  for  her 
to  fling  the  key  of  her  husband's  apartments  into  the  Thames, 
which  was  her  way  of  burning  her  bridges  behind  her.  She 
sought  work  in  the  halls  and  on  the  kinema  stage;  her  per- 
sonality stood  her  in  good  stead  for  odd  jobs,  and  she  had 
come  to  straits,  where,  in  the  jobless  intervals,  she  was  forced 
to  eke  out  a  livelihood  in  Molly's  way.  What  was  one  to  do? 
One  had  to  live. 

"Why  didn't  you  go  to  your  mother?  Didn't  you  say  you 
had  a  well-to-do  mother  in  Ireland?"  asked  Gombarov. 

"Last  person  I'd  go  to!  You  don't  know  mother.  She 
swore  and  cursed  at  me  when  I  married  an  English  officer, 
and  when  she  heard  that  I  went  on  the  stage  she  swore  and 
cursed  at  me  some  more,  and  vowed  that  I'd  never  cross  her 
threshold.  And  I  don't  know  that  I  can  go  back  to  that  quiet 
life.  Anyhow,  I'm  anathema  to  her.  Do  you  know,  she  still 
swears  and  curses  at  me!  Why,  every  Sunday  afternoon, 
regularly,  just  as  I'm  having  tea  in  my  room,  I  feel  a  sudden 
shudder,  and  I  know  it's  my  mother's  swearings  and  cursings 
coming  at  me  all  the  way  from  the  West  of  Ireland.  It's 
just  like  a  wind  suddenly  coming  into  the  room,  even  on  a 
quiet  day  and  the  window  closed.  .  .  ." 

As  Gombarov  listened  to  Kathleen,  not  only  was  he  fasci- 
nated by  her  lively  personality,  but  he  also  marvelled  at  the 
whiteness  and  smoothness  of  her  skin.  And  she  was  child- 
like in  her  gaiety  and  playfulness,  and  surely  there  was  less 
real  wickedness  in  her  than  in  many  virtuous,  respectable  per- 
sons he  had  known.  And  her  presence  comforted  him. 


303 


BABEL 

JUDITH 

During  those  weeks  of  waiting,  broken  only  by  a  simple 
acknowledgment  from  Naples  of  the  receipt  of  his  letters  and 
bracelet, — for  Winifred  fell  in  with  his  suggestion  to  write 
only  after  careful  deliberation,  from  New  York — Gombarov 
had  become  a  frequenter  of  the  restaurant  to  which  Molly 
had  introduced  him.  Observation  of  types  served  his  de- 
tachment, drew  his  mind  from  himself  and  his  troubles.  He 
saw  that,  whatever  else  may  be  said  of  the  sadness  and  sor- 
didness  of  the  life  he  observed,  it  could  not  be  denied  that 
the  wretches  who  lived  this  life  employed  not  a  little  courage 
and  fortitude  in  living  it.  They  were  surely,  apart  from 
poor  artists,  the  only  class  in  Christian  society  who  followed 
the  Nazarene's  injunction  to  take  no  thought  of  the  morrow, 
and  that  "sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof." 

He  sat  there,  sometimes  hours  on  a  stretch,  and  watched 
them  coming  and  going.  Tired  and  cold  and  wretched,  from 
walking  their  rounds  in  the  worst  of  weathers,  with  bare  throats 
and  the  thinnest  of  stockings  and  shoes,  they  would  come  in, 
hands  numbed  with  cold,  to  seek  a  respite  in  the  comfortless 
fare  of  poor  tea  or  worse  coffee. 

Though  he  talked  to  many  of  them,  he  seldom  heard  them 
complain.  They  neither  asked  nor  received  pity.  They  were 
true  philosophers,  and  accepted  life  stoically.  They  had  their 
good  and  their  bad  days,  but  whether  they  were  festively  gay 
or  sat  as  symbols  of  utter  dejection  and  abandonment,  their 
child-like  nature  was  nearly  always  clearly  in  evidence.  There 
was  irony  in  the  fact  that  these  had  been  chosen  as  humanity's 
sacrifices  to  the  God  of  virtue  in  wives,  for  served  they  not, 
these  rejected,  as  safety  valves  to  keep  the  rest  of  society 
respectable?  Thus  Gombarov  reflected,  and  he  found  com- 
304 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

fort  here  that  he  could  not  find  among  so-called  respectable 
persons. 

Not  that  all  the  girls  he  met  there  were  of  the  type  of  Molly, 
Anita  or  Kathleen.  They  differed,  as  to  class  and  breeding, 
even  as  the  rest  of  humanity  differs.  And  there  were  lives 
here  inexplicable  in  their  motives  even  as  among  other  human 
beings.  Such  was  Judith,  a  Jewess,  who,  as  he  learnt  later, 
was  born  of  a  family  marked  for  fatality  and  misfortune. 
Judith  was  a  curious,  complex  type,  not  to  be  explained  by 
economics  alone,  though  need  may  have  been  the  final  motive 
in  pushing  her  into  a  life  of  degradation.  She  did  not  appear 
to  have  a  "pal,"  but  usually  sat  alone,  reading  a  book.  She 
was  commonly  referred  to  by  the  others  as  "Sarah"  or  "the 
Jew  girl."  She  was  tall,  well-formed,  with  a  wealth  of  black 
hair,  a  skin  that  seemed  tanned  by  the  sun,  a  slightly  drooping 
aquiline  nose  and  large  dark  eyes,  which  at  moments  lit  up 
with  a  molten  expressiveness,  of  dreaminess,  sadness  or  pride. 
Unlike  the  others,  she  never  appeared  openly  to  solicit  a  man's 
acquaintance,  and  he  had  seen  her  refuse  to  talk  to  a  man 
she  did  not  like.  It  was  not  without  hesitation  that  he 
addressed  her  one  day,  encouraged  by  the  presence  at  her 
side  of  a  volume  of  selections  from  Swinburne.  They 
happened  to  be  sitting  at  the  same  table,  at  an  angle  from  one 
another. 

"Fine  poet!"  he  opened  the  conversation. 

"Do  you  know  him?"  she  asked,  her  astonished  eyes  light- 
ing up  on  finding  another  curious  creature  acquainted  with 
her  favourite  poet. 

"Do  you  know  this?" — and  to  her  greater  astonishment, 
he  recited  the  opening  lines  of  "A  Forsaken  Garden." 

The  next  two  hours  passed  in  a  discussion  of  favourite  writ- 
ers and  certain  current  problems.  She  was  an  ardent  social- 
305 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

1st,  but  no  suffragist.  Only  in  short  snatches  did  they  touch 
upon  intimacies. 

"I'd  like  to  meet  you  again!"  she  said,  as  she  rose  to  go 
and  warmly  pressed  his  hand. 

"Have  tea  with  me  here  to-morrow." 

They  met  several  times  in  the  course  of  the  next  fortnight, 
but  for  all  his  manoeuvring  he  knew  at  the  end  as  little  of  her 
life  as  when  he  first  met  her. 

"Don't  let's  talk  about  trifles,  John!"  she  parried  two  or 
three  deliberate  questions. 

He  had  a  curious  feeling  that  she  liked  him  and  wanted  to 
save  him  the  ordeal  of  painful  revelations.  He  had  given  up 
hope  of  finding  out  anything  about  her,  when  one  afternoon 
she  came  by  appointment  to  tea  and  said  without  sitting 
down: 

"Come  along,  and  have  tea  with  me  in  my  own  little  room, 
that  is,  if  you  don't  mind  going  by  'bus  all  the  way  to  Mile 
End  Road." 

Once  on  the  rear  seat  on  top  of  the  'bus,  she  said: 

"You'll  find  my  mother  a  bit  queer,  but  don't  mind  her. 
She's  had  a  hard  time,  poor  thing,  and  it's  turned  her  head, 
I'm  afraid.  I  suppose  I  had  better  tell  you  something  about 
it.  I've  already  told  you  that  I  was  born  in  Russia,  and  was 
a  mere  kiddie  when  I  left.  It  was  all  due  to  a  pogrom  in  our 
village.  My  father,  a  fine  honest  man,  a  Hebrew  tutor  by 
trade,  was  killed.  My  mother,  then  young,  pretty  and  happy, 
was  violated  by  a  brute  of  a  muzhik.  Poor  mother,  gather- 
ing up  what  goods  she  had  and  selling  what  she  could,  scraped 
enough  money  together  to  bring  us  to  England — that  is,  me 
and  an  older  sister,  Ruth.  As  a  result  of  mother's  misfor- 
tune, another  child  was  born  when  she  got  here,  a  little  girl, 
with  an  unknown  muzhik  for  a  father  1  Fancy  my  mother's 
306 


BABEL 

predicament!  She  did  not  know  whether  to  love  or  hate 
Haggle,  as  we  called  Hagar.  There  were  two  bloods  in  her, 
and  one  a  hated  blood.  Poor  Hagar!  I  don't  know  for 
whom  I  was  sorry  more — mother  or  Hagar.  For,  when  all  is 
said  and  done,  neither  was  responsible  for  what  had  happened. 
Who  was  to  blame?  It  was  hard,  especially  when  you  had 
been  taught  to  believe  that  your  God  could  do  no  wrong! 
And  mother,  as  the  wife  of  a  Hebrew  tutor,  had  been  a  great 
believer  in  her  day.  Something  had  happened  to  her  the 
day  her  God  had  let  her  down.  What  was  the  good  of  saying 
in  your  misfortune,  'Everything  is  for  the  best'?  What  was 
the  good  of  saying,  'The  Lord  will  provide,'  when  she  spent 
the  rest  of  her  life  in  an  alien  land,  slaving  for  three  daughters, 
one  an  unwanted  one!  And  she  never  mentioned  the  Lord 
since  that  unhappy  night,  the  night  of  the  pogrom.  There 
was  Hagar  to  remind  her  every  day  of  that  terrible  tragedy 
in  the  cold  darkness  of  a  Russian  winter  night. 

"Well,  we  grew  up!  Haggie,  poor  dear,  was  a  very  hand- 
some girl,  more  Russian  than  Jewish  in  feature,  but  with  sad 
Jewish  eyes!  You  know,  you  can  always  tell  a  Jew  by  his 
eyes!  You'd  have  to  go  a  long  way  to  find  a  handsomer  girl 
than  Haggie.  She  was  both  gentle  and  impetuous,  extremely 
sad  or  extremely  gay.  In  fact,  she  was  extreme  in  all  things. 
When  she  was  eighteen  she  found  a  position  in  a  tobacconist's 
shop  in  the  West  End,  and  it  was  there,  while  waiting  on 
customers,  that  she  met  a  gentleman,  a  racing  man,  who  was 
greatly  taken  with  her  and  paid  court  to  her.  He  was  quite 
gone  on  her  and  took  her  to  the  best  theatres  and  restaurants 
and  lavished  every  attention  upon  her.  She  also  took  a  great 
fancy  to  him,  and  it  was  not  long  before  she  gave  herself  up 
to  him,  body  and  soul.  There  was  this  to  be  said  for  him: 
he  was  kindness  itself  to  her.  And  she  was  very  happy. 

307 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

Strange  to  say— or,  perhaps,  it  was  not  so  strange,  after  all 
—when  Haggle  told  mother— for  Haggle  had  a  very  frank  na- 
ture— mother  neither  said  anything  nor  protested  in  any  way. 
I  suppose  she  thought:  that  was  to  have  been  expected  of 
a  blood  tainted  with  the  blood  of  a  Russian  savage.  Besides, 
since  there  was  no  longer  any  God — her  God  having  died  in 
the  cold  darkness  of  that  terrible  Russian  night — what  did  it 
matter?  Stranger  still,  Hagar's  own  nature,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  her  love,  seemed  to  undergo  an  interesting  change. 
She  lost  all  her  impetuousness,  and  became  as  gentle  and  as 
kind — well,  simply  an  angel!  Apart  from  her  love,  her 
thoughts  seemed  to  be  all  for  us.  Of  her  own  free  will  she 
gave  mother  what  money  her  lover  gave  her,  or  bought  dresses 
and  presents  for  me.  Only  Ruth  would  have  nothing  to  do 
with  her.  Ruth,  I  may  tell  you,  is  the  pious  member  of  the 
family.  If  you  meet  her,  you  will  see  for  yourself.  What 
a  family!  .  .  ." 

As  if  overcome  by  her  memories,  Judith  paused,  and  a  thin 
veil  of  moisture  was  visible  in  her  eyes.  She  leaned  a  little 
against  her  companion,  and  her  hand  almost  automatically 
slipped  into  his;  she  seemed  to  derive  strength  from  the  con- 
tact. He  seized  her  hand  and  held  it  firm,  and  by  an  effort 
of  the  will  experienced  the  curious  consciousness  of  active 
strength  surging  in  his  blood,  downward  from  his  shoulder 
to  his  finger-tips,  infusing  the  girl  with  it.  He  had  an  in- 
tense desire  to  give,  give,  give,  as  much  as  possible  of  this 
sudden-born  strength,  drawn  up  from  unsuspected  wells  in 
him  by  some  quality  hi  the  girl  herself.  She  must  have 
divined  something  of  what  was  going  on  within  him,  for  she 
smiled  faintly,  and  impulsively  seizing  his  hand  kissed  it 
gently  and  fervently. 

"You  are  a  dear,"  she  said.    "I  can  go  on  now!" 
308 


BABEL 

A  moisture  crept  into  his  eyes,  but  he  controlled  himself, 
while  she  resumed: 

"Hagar's  affair  went  on  for  a  full  year,  at  the  end  of  which 
she  was  more  in  love  with  her  Larry  than  at  the  beginning. 
He,  too,  seemed  attached  to  her.  Then  one  day  he  told  her 
that  at  the  doctor's  orders  he  must  take  a  month's  holiday. 
He  explained  that  he  could  not  take  her  with  him,  as  he  was 
going  to  spend  the  time  with  his  family  in  the  country.  It 
did  break  my  heart  to  see  her  pining  away  for  her  Larry. 
The  shock  came  five  weeks  later.  He  wrote  her  saying  that 
he  had  just  been  married  and  he  enclosed  a  hundred-pound 
cheque,  adding  that  he  would  see  that  she  was  not  in  want. 
Poor  Haggie  never  touched  that  cheque,  but  just  pined  away. 
Weakened  by  insufficient  nourishment,  she  caught  a  cold, 
which  developed  into  pneumonia.  Even  mother,  hardened  as 
she  was  against  misfortune,  was  touched.  Well,  some  days 
later  mother  got  me  to  write  a  letter  to  Larry,  asking  him 
to  call  before  a  certain  date,  to  see  Haggie  for  the  last  time, 
as  Haggie  was  going  away  to  a  distant  country.  .  .  . 

"Larry  came  and  I  took  him  into  Haggle's  bedroom,  where 
Haggie,  all  in  white  like  a  bride,  was  lying  in  her  coffin. 
Larry  stood  there,  as  white  as  a  ghost,  looking  at  her,  and 
I  couldn't  help  saying  to  him:  That's  your  work,  Larry!' 
He  said  with  tears  in  his  voice:  'But  I  meant  to  have  done 
things  for  her.  She  need  never  have  been  in  want!'  I  went 
to  the  table  and  drew  an  envelope  out  of  a  box,  in  which 
Haggie  kept  her  few  treasures,  and  handed  it  to  him.  He 
drew  out  the  cheque  he  had  sent  her.  'Haggie  kept  it  for 
you,'  said  I,  'she  wouldn't  touch  it!'  I  must  say  for  him 
that  he  was  badly  broken  up.  He  couldn't  say  a  word.  He 
just  kept  looking  at  her,  then  bent  down  and  kissed  her  lips, 
and  walked  out  of  the  room,  without  even  saying  good-bye! 

309 


BABEL 

A  day  or  two  later  he  wrote  to  me,  begging  forgiveness,  and 
saying  that  he  hadn't  realised  until  too  late  how  Haggle  had 
loved  him,  and  how  he  had  loved  her.  If  he  had,  things 
would  have  been  different!  There  it  is:  that  'Too  late!'  Life 
is  so  full  of  'Too  lates'!  There  was  also  mother  who  realised 
too  late  what  a  treasure  Hagar  had  been.  And  she  lapsed 
into  a  state  of  melancholia  and  remorse.  Too  late!  So  it  is 
with  all  of  us.  We  do  not  miss  what  treasure  there  is  around 
us  until  it  is  gone.  Too  late!  Too  late!  Too  late!"... 

She  lapsed  into  silence,  and  Gombarov  again  pressed  her 
hand  and  tried  to  infuse  her  with  his  strength,  but  she  rose 
impetuously  and  said: 

"Let's  walk  the  rest  of  the  way.  It's  so  difficult  to  talk 
here!" 

His  hand  clutching  her  arm,  they  walked  for  some  minutes 
in  silence,  during  which  she  seemed  to  be  gathering  herself 
for  the  final  revelations. 

"Do  you  know,"  she  said  with  a  fierce  outburst,  "you,  too, 
in  a  way,  have  come  too  late!" 

"What  do  you  mean?"  he  asked,  seeing  that  she  was  silent 
again. 

"Don't  you  see,"  she  said,  impetuously,  "what  my  home 
was  like  and  what  drove  me  to  this!  There  was  mother 
getting  more  and  more  queer.  There  was  my  pious,  austere 
sister.  There  was  the  tragedy  of  Hagar  hanging  over  the 
house,  and  all  that  came  before  it!  Who  would  come  to  our 
house  under  the  circumstances?  It  was  enough  to  drive  the 
sanest  person  mad.  And  there  was  I,  pining  for  life,  for 
love,  for  friendship,  sometimes  just  for  some  one  to  talk  to! 
I  had  read  a  lot,  and  was  burning  to  do  things.  Perhaps,  if 
I  had  remained  in  Russia  I  should  have  been  a  revolutionary. 
Who  knows,  maybe  even  a  bomb-thrower!  I  chafe  under  in- 
310 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

justice.  And  here  I  was  shut  up  in  that  house,  between  those 
two  gloomy  persons,  in  the  fatalistic  atmosphere  of  tragedy. 
There's  just  that  something  about  the  house  that  makes  you 
want  to  go  to  the  devil,  it  doesn't  matter  how!  I  was  all 
burning  up  with  myself  and  my  desires.  I  couldn't,  like 
Ruth,  stick  it  in  a  shop  or  factory  and  lead  a  humdrum  exist- 
ence. Yet  one  must  live,  as  they  say.  If  there  had  been 
only  one  intelligent  person  to  talk  to — someone  like  yourself 
— if  only  you  could  have  come  sometimes,  then,  maybe  I 
should  not  have  chucked  myself  at  the  first  passer-by.  Oh, 
that  house  of  ours!  It  was  enough  to  corrupt  an  angel!"  .  .  . 

Even  while  she  was  talking,  it  suddenly,  hi  a  flash,  oc- 
curred to  Gombarov  that,  in  telling  her  story  and  in  taking 
him  to  her  home,  her  whole  object  was  to  justify  herself  before 
him,  more  than  that,  to  justify  herself  before  herself.  She 
had  a  moral  need  of  this  justification. 

".  .  .  Why  do  I  talk  to  you?"  she  went  on.  "I  don't  know. 
I've  never  had  the  chance  to  talk  like  this  to  anyone.  But 
you  remember  the  first  instant  you  spoke  to  me.  Well,  I 
felt  like  a  wanderer  who  had  wandered  for  a  thousand  years 
and  somewhere  in  this  huge  desert  of  our  life  met  just  an- 
other such  wanderer,  for  I  knew  that  you,  too,  had  suffered. 
I  knew  it  the  instant  you  spoke.  .  .  ." 

"Surely,"  he  interrupted  her,  "it  is  not  too  late  for  you  to 
begin  a  new  life.  You  are  young,  you  are  beautiful,  and  you 
know  so  much.  .  .  ." 

"No,  no!  It  is  too  late.  I  once  hungered  for  a  supe- 
rior being.  I  felt  I  could  have  inspired  an  artist!" 

"You  still  could.    You  have  an  unusual,  stimulating  mind." 

"No,  no!  It's  not  that  I  mean  at  all.  I  mean  with  my 
body,  the  love  and  drunkenness  of  the  body.  Do  you  under- 
stand? With  my  body.  People  do  not  understand  the  body. 

3" 


BABEL 

What  a  wonderful,  wonderful  thing  the  body  is.  But  now 
it's  too  late,  too  late!  My  body  is  tainted.  It  is  no  longer 
a  pure  wine,  but  is  a  thing  mixed  up  with  gall,  poison  and 
wormwood.  Oh,  no,  I'm  not  what  you  would  call  a  trimmed 
lamp!  Oh,  this  civilisation!"  she  cried  with  fury.  "When 
I  walk  in  Piccadilly  and  see  the  great  herd  pass  by,  I  feel 
as  though  I'd  like  to  press  a  button  and  send  it  all  flying  in 
a  billion  fragments  into  space,  myself  with  it!" 

Gombarov  had  a  tight  grip  on  her  arm  and  was  silent.  He 
was  helpless  before  this  volcano  of  sputtering  fire.  He  felt 
a  sacredness  in  her  flame,  now  turned  to  derision,  against 
herself.  Even  now  there  were  stray,  clear,  passionate  threads 
in  her  flame,  which  stirred  a  strange  thought  in  him:  "Yes, 
why  shouldn't  I  take  her  even  now  and  cut  loose  from  Wini- 
fred, who  doesn't  want  me?  We  are,  both  of  us,  of  the  hurt 
things  of  the  world,  and  we  can  soothe  one  another  with 
pity  of  hurt  things.  Is  not  pity  the  greater  love,  seeking 
it  does  to  shelter  and  protect,  giving  little  thought  to  selfi 
Is  not  the  thing  men  call  love  an  unconscious  desire  to  destr 
the  one  they  love,  even  as  I  have  often,  with  my  loving,  desii 
to  destroy  Winifred?"  This  thought  struggled  in  him, 
was  smothered  by  worldly  after-thoughts,  for  he  knew 
mind  to  have  been  tainted  and  prostituted  by  the  world,  e\ 
as  Judith  was  conscious  of  the  tainting  and  prostituting 
her  body.  He  said  aloud: 

"Judith,  why  don't  you  find  something  to  do  that  woi 
suit  your  temperament?    I  have  an  idea  you'd  make  a 
actress!" 

Judith  only  laughed.    "Do  you  realise,"  she  said  with 

vehemence,  "what  it  means  to  become  an  actress  nowadays! 

Do  you  suppose  one  is  chosen  just  for  one's  potentialities, 

however  great  these  may  be?     You  must  have  a 

312 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

backer,  and  you  must  be  a  nice  bit  of  fluff  at  the  service  of 
your  benefactor.  Not  that  I'd  object  to  that  for  the  sake  of 
my  art,  but  I'm  not  the  type  at  all  that  would  appeal  to  a 
modern  impresario.  A  mechanical  doll  is  what  they  want. 
How  many  get  through  to  the  top,  when  they  can  dispose  of 
themselves  as  they  like?  How  many  fall?  Well,  you've 
heard  Anita's  story!  Do  you  know,  I  once  actually  applied  for 
a  small  part  in  legitimate  drama.  What  is  more,  the  manager 
engaged  me.  Then  the  leading  lady  came  along  and  as  soon 
as  she  saw  me,  she  got  me  fired,  for  no  reason  at  all  except 
that  I  was  too  tall  and  too  strikingly  dark,  and  she  wanted 
a  few  fair-headed  wooden  figures  in  the  background  to  set 
her  off!" 

She  lapsed  into  silence,  then  resumed: 

"Given  a  man  a  woman  can  love,  she  may,  of  course,  bear 
children.  But  that  also  is  too  late,  even  if  the  right  man 
turned  up.  For  now  I  am  tainted  with  many  bloods.  Nature 
is  against  the  woman  all  the  time.  A  man  may  lead  the  very 
deuce  of  a  life  and  in  the  end  find  a  woman  who  is  his  mate, 
but  when  a  woman  tries  that  sort  of  thing  she's  lost!  No 
amount  of  suffragism  will  overcome  that.  The  worst  of  this 
wanting  to  live  is  that  if  you  are  thwarted  you  want  to  die. 
That's  what  drove  me  out  of  that  accursed  house  to  destroy 
myself.  Forgive  me  for  talking  like  this.  Well,  I  have  given 
you  an  afternoon!  You  are  a  dear  to  listen,"  and  once  more 
she  caught  up  his  hand  impetuously  and  kissed  it.  "Now 
let's  try  and  be  cheerful.  We  are  nearly  there  now!" 

"Poor  little  Judith,  poor  little  Judith.  ...  I  wish  I  could 
help  you!" 

"Here  we  are!" — and  they  paused  before  a  small  two- 
story  house. 

As  they  entered  the  hall,  the  kitchen  door  near  the  stairs 

3*3 


BABEL 

slightly  opened,  and  a  woman's  wrinkled  face,  with  strange, 
half-demented  eyes,  peered  through  the  opening. 

"It's  only  me,  mother!"  said  Judith. 

The  door  opened  wider  and  the  woman  stepped  into  the 
hall,  a  little,  warped  figure,  whom  the  ills  of  a  mutilated 
world  had  in  some  way  marked  as  their  symbol.  And  it  was 
hard  to  tell  whether  it  was  malignant  or  kindly.  Two  dark 
eyes,  in  a  prematurely  aged  face,  turned  upon  the  stranger 
a  fixed  glitter,  accentuated  by  a  drab,  ill-fitting  wig,  the 
emblem  among  Orthodox  Jews  of  a  married  woman,  and  from 
the  wig  emerged  the  sharp  contours  of  emaciated  high  cheek- 
bones and  sharp  nose  and  chin.  Yet  Judith  had  said  that  she 
had  been  pretty  once,  had  loved  husband  and  children,  and 
had  drudged  her  life  away  to  bring  up  three  daughters.  Where 
was  the  nobility  of  sorrow?  Here  was  but  a  shrivelled,  gar- 
goylish  old  woman,  who  had  lost  her  belief  in  God  and  eternity. 

"See  that  the  young  man  pays  well,"  said  she  in  a  dull, 
hollow  voice,  in  Yiddish. 

"Don't  talk  like  that,  mother,"  said  Judith.  "This  man  is 
not  a  goi.  He  is  a  Yid,  and  a  friend." 

She  shuffled  back  into  the  kitchen,  muttering. 

"Poor  thing!  She  can't  help  herself,"  said  Judith.  "Let's 
go  up  to  my  little  den." 

"Poor  little  Judith!"  he  whispered,  pressing  her  hand,  and 
followed  her  upstairs. 

"Look  in,"  she  said,  opening  the  first  door  on  the  landing. 
"That's  Haggie's  room.  She  died  there.  It's  not  been  occu- 
pied since." 

Everything  was  clean  and  neat  here,  and  the  bed  was  made 
up  as  usual,  but  there  was  all  the  mustiness  and  cheerlessness 
of  a  room  that  had  had  neither  occupant  nor  fire  for  some 
time.  Possibly,  because  he  was  familiar  with  Hagar's  story, 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

it  assumed  a  peculiar  and  poignant  emptiness,  which  brought 
sadness  to  the  heart. 

Judith's  den  was  next  door.  This  was  a  larger,  a  cosier 
room,  containing  in  one  corner  a  broad  divan  instead  of  a 
bed,  covered  over  with  coloured  draperies.  Familiar  por- 
traits of  Shelley,  Turgenev,  Byron  and  Tolstoy  hung  on  the 
walls.  There  was  a  shelf  of  books,  mostly  poets  and  novel- 
ists. Everything  in  the  room  showed  a  measure  of  refined 
simplicity,  with  pleasing  feminine  touches. 

"What  do  you  think  of  it?"  she  asked,  drawing  her  gloves  off. 

"It's  jolly.    Looks  almost  like  a  studio." 

"Yes,  it  helps  me  to  forget  the  house.  Have  a  cigarette. 
You'll  find  them  in  the  box  on  the  table.  Then  sit  down  in 
the  big  chair.  You  might  light  the  fire,  if  you  will." 

All  that  he  saw  pleased  him,  and  he  was  pleased  with  her. 

"Why  not?"  he  asked  himself  again.  One  might  do  worse 
than  take  this  girl  and  make  his  home  with  her.  That  is, 
not  in  this  house,  but  elsewhere,  away  from  familiar  en- 
vironment. 

He  sat  in  the  big  chair  and  watched  the  fire  in  the  grate. 
She  sat  facing  him,  on  the  other  side  of  the  grate.  Outside, 
the  December  daylight  died  away,  and  the  firelight  reflected 
its  warm  orange  tints  in  the  faces  of  man  and  girl,  intensifying 
their  expressions,  all  the  rest  being  more  or  less  lost  in  dark- 
ness and  shadows. 

"Would  you  like  to  have  light?" 

"No,  Judith,  I  prefer  it  as  it  is.    And  you?" 

"I,  too,  prefer  it." 

She  was  intently  watching  his  face,  immobile  with  the 
changeless  sadness  of  eternity. 

"You  look  like  a  statue  of  Grief,"  she  said,  a  smile  in  her 
voice.  "What  a  sad  face  you  have!  I  fear  that  I've  made 

315 


BABEL 

you  sad.  Don't  be  sad,  honey!"  She  dropped  on  her  knees 
on  the  rug  at  his  feet  and  looked  steadily  into  his  face.  "That's 
right,  honey,  smile!  Let's  be  happy!"  And  impetuously  she 
sprang  to  her  feet,  as  a  sudden  idea  seemed  to  strike  her. 
"Ill  be  back  in  a  few  moments!"  She  ran  out  of  the  room. 

Presently  he  heard  her  movements  in  Hagar's  room.  Five 
minutes  elapsed,  and  she  reappeared,  dressed  in  a  Japanese 
kimono,  her  bare  ankles  showing  above  the  dainty  soft  house- 
slippers,  her  lovely  black  hair  luxuriantly  streaming  down  her 
shoulders,  and  covering  her  breasts,  the  V-shaped  opening 
exposing  the  little  valley  between.  The  fire  lighted  up  the 
beautiful  apparition,  and  her  smiling  face,  catching  and  re- 
flecting the  orange  glow  as  the  tints  of  some  dream  sunset, 
was  an  island  of  delight  surrounded  by  a  sea  of  black  hair. 
She  stood  thus  for  a  few  moments  facing  the  fire,  then  walked 
to  the  back  of  his  chair,  and  bending  over  him,  so  that  her 
hair  covered  his  face,  whispered: 

"Don't  be  sad,  honey!  Would  you  like  to  love  me — just 
a  little?  You  may  if  you  want  to." 

The  warm  perfume  of  her  body  and  her  warm  whispered 
words  and  her  hair  brushing  his  face  smothered  him  under 
their  allurements,  but  that  terrible  all-comprehending  sad- 
ness, blended  of  diverse  thoughts — thoughts  of  Hagar,  of  this 
tragic  house,  of  the  half-demented  woman  downstairs,  of  the 
infinite  pathos  of  this  poor,  abandoned,  life-yearning  girl, 
and  of  other  sad  things — held  his  will,  and  he  found  no  an- 
swer. Again,  with  that  contradictory,  conflicting  nature  of 
his,  reasoning,  yet  credulous  of  inscrutable  active  forces,  of 
those  ironic  mysteries  which  dog  men's  footsteps  to  their 
undoing,  he  was  seized  with  one  of  those  sudden  inexplicable 
forebodings,  springing  out  of  nowhere  in  life's  crises,  warning 
him  in  this  instance  that  upon  the  present  test  depended  the 

316 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

nature  of  Winifred's  answer  and  that  if  he  wished  it  to  be 
favourable,  it  was  for  him,  at  all  hazards,  to  resist  this  almost 
irresistible  challenge  of  the  Fates,  of  which  the  girl  was  an 
instrument.  This  feeling  arose  from  past  experiences.  Again, 
he  wondered:  was  Judith  merely  being  kind  to  him?  Her 
impulsive  manner  before  the  transformation  suggested,  per- 
haps, that  she  wanted  to  make  amends  for  having  been  the 
cause  of  his  great  sadness.  And  he  sat  there,  fiercely  tempted, 
and  made  no  answer. 

"Don't  you  want  to?"  asked  the  puzzled  girl. 

"Judith  .  .  ."  he  began. 

She  stood  up  and  went  in  front  of  the  fire.  She  let  the 
kimono  slip  from  her  to  the  rug,  and  was  revealed  to  him  in 
all  her  natural  beauty,  without  civilised  artifices.  She  stood 
up  proud  and  erect,  firm-breasted,  and  there  was  in  her  man- 
ner the  pride  of  the  female;  and  the  firelight  invested  her 
colouring  and  contours  with  a  quality  of  animated  alabaster. 

"Am  I  not  sufficiently  beautiful?"  she  asked,  turning  round 
as  on  a  pivot.  "Don't  I  please  you?  Am  I  incapable  of 
loving  or  being  loved?  .  .  ." 

"Good  God!"  he  exclaimed,  and  there  was  something  so 
poignant  in  his  cry  that  she  immediately  desisted,  and  donning 
the  kimono,  squatted  down  on  the  rug  and  looked  into  his 
face. 

"Judith,  put  your  beautiful  head  on  my  knees  and  let  me 
talk  to  you." 

She  obeyed  submissively. 

"Judith,"  he  said  as  he  stroked  her  hair,  "you  are,  indeed, 
beautiful;  so  beautiful  that  I  would  willingly  and  in  all 
humility  fall  on  my  knees  before  your  beauty  and  kiss  your 
dear  feet.  I  am  human.  It  is  all  I  can  do  to  resist  you. 
I  feel  a  tenderness  for  you  quite  apart  from  that,  a  sort  of 
317 


BABEL 

detached  tenderness.  Please  don't  think  ill  of  me,  but  I 
can't  quite  tell  you  why  I  must  resist  you;  at  all  events, 
for  the  present."  He  hated  himself  for  having  said  this. 
"And  I  am  sad,  very  sad,  you  don't  know  how  sad!  And  very 
tired.  Wait  a  little.  I  may  have  need  of  you.  I  don't  know, 
perhaps  I  will  come  to  you  and  take  you  all  for  my  own, 
for  always.  Wait  a  little.  Please  do  not  tempt  me  now. 
I  can  hardly  resist  you  as  it  is."  And  he  pressed  his  lips 
to  hers  with  a  fervour  that  took  his  strength.  He  talked 
a  great  deal  more  to  her  in  the  same  vein,  and  hated 
himself  for  it.  Did  it  sound  like  cant  to  her?  He  wondered. 

"Never  mind,  darling.  You  are  a  queer  one,  and  I  like  you 
all  the  better  for  it,"  she  hastened  to  reassure  him,  seeing 
that  he  was  in  torment.  "Read  me  'A  Forsaken  Garden,' 
but  I  think  you  said  you  knew  it  by  heart."  She  rose  and 
gracefully  curling  herself  up  in  her  kimono  on  the  divan, 
fixed  her  eyes  on  him  and  listened. 

He  recited  the  poem  with  a  peculiar  intensity.  The 
nerves  of  his  body  were  as  taut  strings  of  a  musical  instru- 
ment, and  it  was  with  his  whole  body,  with  the  whole 
vibrancy  of  his  mad  intoxicated,  self -thwarted  body,  that 
he  poured  out  his  pent-up  feelings  into  an  already  emo- 
tionally pent-up  poem,  and  each  time  he  raised  his  eyes 
he  found  Judith's  intent  on  him  with  wonder.  When  the 
last  line,  "Death  lies  dead,"  had  been  said,  a  supine  silence  fell 
upon  them,  and  in  the  silence  slow  dragging  footsteps  were 
heard  on  the  stairs.  There  was  a  knock  on  the  door,  given 
with  a  foot. 

"Do  open  the  door,"  said  Judith.    "Be  a  dear!" 

It  was  the  old  woman,  her  mother,  bringing  the  tea  on  a 
tray.  She  was  a  witch  in  that  firelight,  and  the  steady 
glitter  of  her  eyes  was  the  glitter  of  the  eyes  of  the  damned  in 

318 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

hell.  And  yet,  as  before,  it  was  hard  to  tell  whether  those  eyes 
were  malignant  or  kindly.  As,  in  that  silence,  he  took  in 
the  whole  scene,  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  whole  tragedy  of 
the  world  was  symbolised  in  these  female  figures  in  the  fire- 
light: all  faith  lost,  mother-love  crushed,  become  a  mockery; 
young  creative  fires  thwarted,  turned  against  that  beautiful 
body  for  its  disintegration.  There  was  himself,  too,  con- 
sumed with  aspirations,  yet  a  mere  beggar,  a  snatcher  of 
Life's  dropped  crumbs.  He  watched  the  grotesque  figure 
shuffle  out  of  the  room,  and  his  compassionate  thoughts  rose 
and  fell  in  that  silence,  like  sea-birds  on  the  crests  of  incom- 
ing waves. 

Judith  lay  there,  without  changing  the  decorative  gesture 
of  her  body,  and  watched  his  face  out  of  her  large  dark 
eyes.  Then,  impetuously,  she  sprang  up  and  busied  herself 
over  the  tea  tray.  She  laughed. 

"I  do  believe  mother  has  taken  a  fancy  to  you.  Do  you 
know,  she  has  actually  brought  up  some  Russian  tea,  with 
lemon,  and  home-made  jam  and  Jewish  cookies.  She's  never 
done  that  before  when  I  was  entertaining  a  gentleman.  Mother 
is  a  good  sort  at  bottom,  when  she  has  the  chance.  Who'd 
have  thought  that  she'd  take  a  fancy  to  you?  ..." 

Something  gave  way  in  Gombarov,  for  suddenly  leaning 
his  elbows  on  his  knees  and  burying  his  face  in  his  hands,  he 
wept. 

What  was  it  that  made  him  weep,  so  suddenly  and  unex- 
pectedly? Was  it  the  tragic  phantasmagoria,  blurredly  passing 
that  afternoon  before  the  hidden  tears  of  his  soul  and  suddenly, 
through  those  tears,  bursting  into  tragic  rainbows  of  light 
and  colour,  overwhelming  the  visible  body  of  him  and  now 
expressing  itself  in  visible  tears?  Was  it  the  revealed  bodily 
beauty  of  that  girl,  a  world  so  unexpectedly  offered  up  to 
319 


BABEL 

him,  and  for  him  to  command,  and  his  wise  or  foolish  renun- 
ciation of  it?  Was  it  the  drunken  ecstasy  with  which  he 
poured  himself  into  that  drunken  poem?  Was  it  the  unlooked- 
for  and  inexpressibly  beautiful  spark  of  goodness  emanating 
from  so  unpromising  a  source  as  that  witch-like  old  woman? 
It  was  all  these  things — and  more.  Great  sorrow  weeps  from 
great  depths,  and  the  woes  of  this  world  may  sound  through 
the  tears  of  but  two  eyes,  or  through  the  music  of  a  blind 
man's  reed,  or  in  the  woeful  moan  of  the  wind  blowing  on  a 
winter  night  through  the  narrow  crevice  between  two  hovels. 
Suppressed  sobs  came  at  intervals,  while  he  thus  wept. 

Judith  jumped  to  his  side  and  getting  down  on  one  knee, 
took  hold  of  his  head.  "Don't  cry,  honey,  don't  cry.  Now, 
darling,  put  your  dear  head  here,"  and  she  opened  her  kimono, 
and  drew  his  head  so  that  it  rested  on  her  bosom,  and  his 
tears  trickled  down  the  little  valley  between  her  breasts. 

He  soon  felt  soothed,  and  he  no  longer  wept. 

"Here,  honey,"  she  said,  as  he  rested  quietly,  "I'll  be  a 
little  mother  to  you."  And  swaying  her  body  slightly  from 
side  to  side,  she  began  singing  the  wordless  tune  of  an  old 
Russian  lullaby  that  his  mother  used  to  sing  in  his  childhood 
days,  and  as  he  looked  up,  shamefaced,  into  her  eyes  he  found 
her  smiling  happily,  with  a  joy  he  had  not  seen  in  her 
before. 

"You  are  an  angel!"  he  said,  at  last,  as  she  rose  to  pour  out 
the  tea.  "Maybe  you  are  a  fallen  angel,  but  still  an  angel. 
And  I  suppose,"  he  laughed,  "that  I  must  be  a  fallen  devil. 
I  am  moved  and  fascinated  by  evil,  but  active  good  touches 
me  in  an  unexpected  way." 

"There!  You've  struck  the  nail  on  the  head.  I  can't  stand 
goodness,  or  goody-goody  people.  Puritans  have  made  goodness 
a  wicked  thing,  indeed!  But  active  goodness  is  quite  another 
320 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

thing.  Only  by  becoming  active,  in  the  way  you  mean,  can 
it  become  more  fascinating  than  evil.  Christ  was  the  best 
example  of  that.  ..." 

Thus  they  talked  on  of  the  mysteries  of  creation,  of  good 
and  evil,  of  life  and  death.  .  .  . 

"I've  had  a  most  wonderful  afternoon!"  said  Judith,  when 
he  rose  to  depart. 

"So  have  I!" 

Spontaneously  they  embraced,  and  he  kissed  her  hair  and 
her  eyes  and  hands. 

She  led  the  way  downstairs.  The  door  of  the  front  room 
was  open.  The  room  was  lit  up  by  a  small  seven-candled 
candelabra,  and  before  it,  her  hands  spread  across  the  light 
of  the  candles,  stood  a  young  woman,  like  an  austere  shadow, 
praying.  It  was  Ruth,  blessing  the  candles,  on  the  eve  of 
Sabbath. 

Judith  opened  the  front  door,  and,  kissing  the  tips  of  her 
fingers  of  both  hands,  he  went  out.  He  looked  back  and  saw 
her  standing  in  the  doorway,  her  eyes  following  him.  Then  he 
disappeared  round  the  corner. 

A  half  hour  afterwards  he  found  himself  caught  up  in  the 
traffic  of  diners  and  playgoers  in  Piccadilly.  In  a  lost  way 
he  stood  on  the  Shaftesbury  side  of  the  Pavilion  and  watched 
the  slow  passage  of  taxis  and  huge  private  cars  containing 
men  in  evening  dress  smoking  cigars  and  richly  attired  women 
with  jewelry  in  their  hair,  and  as  he  thought  of  Judith  a 
wrath  rose  up  within  him,  and,  like  Judith,  he  wished  there 
were  a  button  to  press,  whereby  he  could  send  all  this  world, 
himself  included,  flying  in  a  billion  fragments  into  space. 

He  did  not  see  Judith  for  ten  days,  when  one  morning  he 
received  a  wire  from  her,  saying  that  her  mother  was  ill  and 
begging  him  to  come  in  the  afternoon. 
321 


BABEL 

"Sh-h!  Go  quietly!  "said  Judith,  unusually  pale.  "Mother 
has  had  a  relapse.  I  think  the  dear  is  dying.  The  doctor 
just  left.  He  didn't  think  she'd  live  through  the  day.  Ruth 
is  with  her.  Ruth  wanted  to  fetch  the  Rabbi,  but  mother 
refuses  to  hear  of  it,  and  abuses  her  frightfully  when  she 
mentions  it.  She  breaks  out  into  queer  fits  and  says  the  most 
impossible  things.  She's  quiet  just  now.  Come  in,  and  see 
her,  if  you  don't  mind.  Your  presence  might  stop  her  from 
saving  those  awful  things.  And  it  will  help  me  to  see  you  there. 
Please  don't  mind  what  she  says." 

On  tip-toe  they  made  their  way  to  the  back  room  on  the 
ground-floor,  and,  pushing  aside  the  draperies,  Judith  peeped 
in  and  motioned  him  to  follow.  His  face  was  pale,  and  he 
tried  to  control  the  trembling  of  his  body.  She  pointed  to  a 
seat  near  the  door,  at  the  farthest  angle  from  the  bed,  and 
herself  sat  down  between  him  and  the  austere  but  not  unat- 
tractive Ruth,  who  was  sitting  at  the  bedside,  watching  the 
pale,  immobile  face  of  her  mother.  The  old  woman  lay  on  her 
back,  her  face  upward,  and  the  only  sign  of  life  was  the  mo- 
tionless glitter  of  her  eyes,  fixed  on  the  ceiling.  As  it  presently 
proved,  she  was  only  gathering  strength  for  a  new  onslaught. 
Not  many  minutes  elapsed,  when  with  a  startling  unexpected- 
ness, she  turned  full  face  upon  Ruth,  and  addressed  her  in 
virulent  Yiddish: 

"What's  the  good  of  it,  what's  the  good  of  it?  I  ask  you. 
What's  the  good  of  toiling  the  days  of  one's  life,  like  a  slave? 
Day  after  day  in  a  wretched  workshop!  Look  at  yourself  in 
a  mirror!  What  do  you  look  like?  Tell  me.  And  how  pale 
you  look!  And  thin!  If  you  go  on,  you'll  be  nothing  but 
skin  and  bones!  Look  at  your  hands!  It's  a  shame  for  a 
young  girl  to  have  such  hard,  cut-up  hands.  Saving  yourself 
up  for  a  young  man?  What  young  man  will  have  you?  Young 
322 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

men  are  not  fools!     Look  at  Judith!     Judith  knows  how  to 
live.  ..." 

"Don't,  mother!"  cried  Ruth.    "Judith  has  her  life,  and  I 
have  mine!" 

"Look  at  Judith!"  went  on  the  old  woman,  relentlessly, 
raising  her  hoarse  voice.  "Judith  has  nice  dresses,  Judith  is 
gay,  Judith  has  young  men  come  to  see  her,  Judith's  cheeks 
are  like  two  red  apples.  .  .  .  What's  the  good  of  it,  I  ask  you, 
living  like  this?  Go  to  the  streets,  I  tell  you  ...  to  the 
streets!"  she  shouted,  raising  herself  from  the  pillow.  "What 
are  you  waiting  for?  For  the  Messiah  to  come?  Too  long  have 
we  Jews  waited  for  the  Messiah!  Too  long!  Your  own  mother 
tells  you  to  do  that!  Do  you  hear?  Your  own  mother! 
Three  daughters  your  mother  has  brought  into  the  world  .  . 
three  daughters!  Oh,  woe  is  me!  ...  One  was  brought  into 
the  world  by  a  got  and  killed  by  a  got!  God  was  merciful  to 
her!  But  Judith  is  clever!  She'll  let  no  man  kill  her.  She'll 
make  them  pay,  too,  for  a  nice  living!  But  you!  What  are 
you  waiting  for?  Go  into  the  streets,  I  tell  you.  Judith  is 
clever,  shell  show  you  how.  She'll  start  you  off!  Ah,  young 
man!"  she  appealed,  fixing  her  eyes  on  Gombarov.  "You  are 
a  man  of  the  world.  You  know  something  about  life! 
Tell  her  what  a  little  fool  she  is,  to  be  wearing  herself  out. 
To  the  streets,  I  say!  There  are  plenty  of  young  men 
who  ... " 

Much  to  the  relief  of  all,  she  had  exhausted  herself  and 
fell  back  on  to  the  pillow,  but  she  went  on  faintly  muttering: 

"To  the  streets  ...  the  streets.  ..." 

And  again  a  silence  fell  upon  the  room. 

Gombarov,  his  body  trembling,  tried  to  find  a  ray  among 
bis  dimmed,  confused  thoughts  that  would  explain  this  mystery 
of  the  warping  of  a  soul,  and  at  last  he  found  a  bright  spark 
323 


BABEL 

that  illumined  his  whole  brain,  and  thence  conveyed  its  light 
to  the  heart.  Pathetic  and  sad  as  all  this  was,  yet,  he  reflected, 
there  was  something  truly  magnificent  in  the  blasphemous  old 
woman's  dying  gesture.  That  was  her  way,  even  in  her  last 
gasp,  of  defying  the  gods,  who  had  treated  her  so  cruelly.  She 
was  hitting  out  her  feeble  shrunken  fists  in  the  face  of  her 
one-time  God!  What  a  noble  impulse  was  here,  urging  her 
to  evil! 

Presently,  the  old  woman  showing  signs  of  life  again,  Judith 
bent  towards  her  sister,  who  was  holding  her  face  in  her  hands, 
and  whispered: 

"Tell  her  yes,  when  she  begins  ngain.  It  won't  cost  you 
anything!" 

Ruth  shook  her  head  negatively. 

"You  can't  fool  me!"  cried  the  old  woman,  raising  her  head 
from  the  pillow.  In  spite  of  her  half-comatose  condition,  she 
seemed  to  know  and  hear  everything.  "To  the  streets,  I  say! 
...  the  streets.  ..." 

Seized,  at  last,  with  a  sudden  pain,  she  screwed  up  her  face, 
curved  her  body  upward,  with  a  violent  twist,  and  her  head 
fell  backward,  chin  up.  Her  eyes  gave  a  rolling  motion,  like 
the  eyes  of  a  mechanical  doll,  a  quick,  struggling  flutter,  flashed 
white  and  black,  and  suddenly  stood  still  with  a  lifeless  stare. 
The  mad  glitter  was  gone. 

Judith  rose  and  went  over  to  the  bedside.  For  some  moments 
she  stood  looking  down  on  her  mother,  then  busied  herself  in 
arranging  her  mother's  head  and  hands,  to  give  the  dead  an 
appearance  of  ultimate  decorum. 

Gombarov  left  Judith  two  hours  later,  after  accompanying 
her  to  various  Jewish  dignitaries,  associated  with  the  burial  of 
the  dead. 

Shaken  by  the  ordeal,  a  quixotic  thought  stirred  in  him.  In 
324 


ACCEPTED  BY  THE  REJECTED 

the  event  of  a  negative  answer  from  Winifred,  he  would  ask 
Judith  to  come  away  with  him;  he  would  reclaim  her  from 
the  degradation  into  which  her  tragic  fate  had  driven  and 
directed  her  will. 


325 


CHAPTER  IX:     LIFE'S  CHESSBOARD:  A  YEAR'S 
MOVES 

"What's  the  use  of  being  a  King 
without  a  Queent" 

— Jew  (over  chessboard)  in  an 
American  burlesque. 

THE  QUEEN   STILL  THERE 

No,  the  Queen  on  Gombarov's  chessboard  was  not  yet  lost. 
He  had  thought  her  as  good  as  lost,  when  she  had  been  merely 
in  jeopardy.  Now,  one  may  have  pawns  and  bishops  and 
castles  and  knights,  but  there  is  no  comfort  for  a  King  without 
a  Queen.  Thus  it  is  for  a  King  in  life,  or  for  a  King  on  a 
chessboard.  His  final  move  in  writing  to  Winifred  at  Naples 
did  the  trick,  saved  the  Queen. 

One  morning  in  January  a  letter  arrived  from  New  York, 
conveying  Winifred's  intention  to  stand  by  him.  Her  surrender 
was  complete  and  unconditional.  The  Fates  that  had  driven 
him  to  make  his  desperate  move  were  beneficent,  by  this  move 
his  position  was  considerably  strengthened. 

"I  am  writing  today,"  her  letter  ran,  "to  say  that,  if  you 
still  want  me,  I  give  myself  entirely  to  you,  John,  my  own.  .  . 
It  is  a  wonderful  moment,  for  I  am  seeing  things  finely  and 
clearly.  ...  I  seem  to  have  come  out  of  a  horrible  mist,  and 
now  I  know  that  you  are  all  I  have  ever  wanted.  ...  I  would 
do  anything  in  the  world  for  you.  ...  I  wonder  if  we  can 
see  enough  of  one  another  before  we  die.  .  .  .  There  is  so 
much  to  say  to  make  up  for  those  dreadful  months.  When  we 
left  Paris  and  wandered  through  Italy  I  thought  that  you 
326 


LIFE'S  CHESSBOARD :  A  YEAR'S  MOVES 

hated  me,  and  when  your  letters  came  in  Naples  I  could  hardly 
adjust  myself  so  quickly.  I  almost  wrote  then,  but  thought 
it  would  be  better  to  obey  you  and  wait.  On  the  boat  I 
regretted  very  much  that  I  didn't.  .  .  .  Suppose,  I  thought, 
the  vessel  should  sink.  .  .  .  Then  you  might  never  know  how 
much  I  cared.  .  .  .  Pray,  forgive  me  for  all  the  trouble  IVe 
given  you.  .  .  .  And  remember  that  I  am  married  to  you 
now  in  spirit — and  from  today — if  you  will  have  me,  my  own 
John!  ..." 

The  morning  the  letter  arrived  was  dark  with  fog,  and 
London,  lit  up  with  gas  lights,  bore  the  aspect  of  neither  night 
nor  day,  but  as  of  some  unnatural  night,  fraught  with  dual 
impulses  and  counter-impulses,  waging  an  invisible  war  for  the 
city's  soul.  The  sun  rose  for  a  short  space,  red  like  a  goaded 
moon,  and,  as  if  maddened  by  its  humiliation,  sank  again  into 
oblivion,  its  frank,  blazing  masculinity  refusing  to  compro- 
mise with  the  dark  temptress.  "All  or  nothing!"  it  seemed  to 
say,  and  sank  out  of  sight  to  allow  the  dark  one  to  have  her 
sway.  The  unnatural  darkness  had  to  be  content  with  the 
caresses  of  petty  flares  of  gaslight;  a  cold,  unnatural  lover  was 
that  motionless  darkness,  caressed  by  thousands  of  petty  flares. 

Thus  it  was  with  Gombarov's  soul,  in  which  day  and  night 
struggled,  as  too  much  wrought  up  he  went  out  to  seek  his 
breakfast  and  to  adjust  himself  to  the  news.  He  was  elated, 
but  was  not  filled  with  elation.  He  had  won,  but  why  did  not 
the  sun  rise  on  his  victory,  fill  him  with  its  abundant  light? 
That  unnatural  darkness,  caressed  by  thousands  of  petty 
flames,  was  his  own  inner  self,  filled  with  flaming  broodings. 
It  was  strange,  but  half  of  him  almost  wished  that  he  had 
lost.  He  had  been  prepared  for  defeat,  he  had  been  making 
up  his  mind  to  join  hands  with  the  defeated  Judith,  and  it 
was  curious  to  reflect  that  this  prospect  of  defeat  and  of 
327 


BABEL 

joining  hands  with  the  defeated  held  out  an  attraction  hardly 
less  than  that  of  victory.  It  would  have  been,  in  its  own  way, 
a  victory.  It  was  irritating  to  be  a  thinking  modern,  with  a 
soul  floundering  in  its  own  many  doubts.  Sacred  and  profane 
love?  Indeed!  Which  was  which? 

He  went  on  thinking  these  thoughts  in  a  gas-lit  A.  B.  C. 
shop,  between  mouthfuls  of  porridge. 

"Damn  it! "  he  said  to  himself.  "What  a  complexity,  what 
a  network  of  thoughts  and  impulses  and  desires  civilisation 
makes  of  man,  pulling  him  now  in  this  direction,  now  in  that! 
What  am  I  at  bottom?  Which  of  these  things  is  the  real 
I?  What  do  I  want?  Where  am  I  going?  Which  way 
should  I  go?  .  .  .  Once  I  knew  what  I  wanted.  ..." 

He  smiled  enigmatically,  and  resumed  his  monologue: 

"...  To  know  oneself,  to  have  but  one  thought,  to  be 
fanatical  is  good.  It  is  to  be  harnessed  to  a  tiger,  to  have 
all  the  fury  and  energy  of  a  tiger!  To  have  many  thoughts 
is  to  divide  one's  strength.  It  is  to  be  harnessed  to  an  army 
of  fleas,  dragging  in  different  directions.  It  is  to  feel  oneself 
falling  apart.  .  .  . 

"I  had  once  thought  civilisation  was  Janus-faced.  It  is 
really  more  than  that:  it  is  multiple-faced.  It  is  like  that 
multiple-breasted  woman,  or  that  multiple-armed  man  sculp- 
tured by  the  ancients.  It  is  moved  by  a  thousand  wills,  and 
a  thousand  wills  are  worse  than  none.  They  are  wills  for 
mutual  destruction,  self-destruction.  ..." 

His  thoughts  paused  before  a  mental  wall,  seemed  to 
surmount  that  wall,  and  went  on: 

"Civilisation  is  Babel,  and  every  civilised  man  today  is  a 

Babel  in  himself,  since  he  bears  all  this  world  in  his  soul.    I 

am  Babel,  a  full-thoughted,  tottering  modern  man,  and  only 

the  tiger  in  my  soul  now  and  then  peeps  out  of  his  cage  and 

328 


LIFE'S  CHESSBOARD :  A  YEAR'S  MOVES 

gazes  with  pity  or  hatred  at  the  civilised  but  godless  world 
that  has  so  caught  him  and  caged  him.  ..." 

He  suddenly  observed  that  the  fog  was  lifting,  the  lights 
in  the  restaurant  went  out.  Outside  Gombarov  found  that  a 
fresh  breeze  had  sprung  up.  Every  vestige  of  the  fog  was 
gone,  the  air  was  rosy  with  sunlight,  and  full  of  soft  tremors, 
like  a  caressed  virgin.  A  sudden  and  overpowering  elation 
seized  him,  swept  away  his  doubts,  and  all  his  thought  went 
out  to  Winifred,  now  his  once  more. 

It  was  not  astonishing  that  he  should  have  entertained 
depressing  thoughts,  for  now,  in  the  reaction  following  his 
ordeal  and  conflict  of  weeks,  he  felt  a  sheer  physical  weariness, 
and  now  and  then  he  pulled  up  with  a  sharp  pain  in  his  back. 
For  days  a  hardness  as  of  a  huge  boil  or  ulcer  had  been 
developing  at  the  waist  near  the  spine.  "I  must  see  a  doctor!" 
he  decided. 

That  same  afternoon  he  went  to  a  doctor,  recommended  to 
him  by  Julius.  The  doctor,  a  portly,  good-natured  man, 
examined  the  sore  spot,  and  said: 

"It's  a  bad  one!  I'm  afraid  it  can't  be  lanced.  It  will  have 
to  be  cut  out.  It's  near  the  bone.  Your  blood  is  in  a  bad 
condition.  Have  you  been  worrying?" 

"Yes." 

"I  thought  sol    A  girl,  I  suppose.  ..." 

"Yes,  and  other  things  besides." 

"You  said  you  were  an  author.  You  have  a  highly  developed 
nervous  system.  You  are  like  a  fine,  sensitive  machine.  That 
means  you've  got  to  take  good  care  of  it!  Oil  it  properly, 
and  keep  the  dust  off.  Can  you  afford  to  go  to  a  nursing 
home,  or  do  you  prefer  a  hospital?  If  you  go  to  a  hospital,  it 
will  cost  you  nothing." 

"Yes,  I'd  prefer  that!" 

329 


BABEL 

The  doctor  sat  down  at  his  desk  and  wrote  a  note,  which  he 
handed  to  Gombarov. 

"If  you  will  present  it  at  the  hospital  to  which  it  is 
addressed,  you  will  be  admitted  and  given  a  bed.  Go 
tomorrow,  and  111  operate  the  day  after.  You  may  have  to 
remain  a  fortnight  or  so." 

"I  appreciate  your  kindness.  And  what  do  I  owe  you  for 
this  visit?" 

"Nothing!"  replied  the  doctor,  who  was  an  expensive  prac- 
titioner. "Consider  me,"  he  laughed,  "a  patron  of  the  arts. 
Still,  if  you  like  you  can  send  me  a  copy  of  your  book,  when 
you  write  one.  I  have  a  weakness  for  struggling  authors." 

A    RESPITE    FROM    THE    CHESSBOARD 

"Go  ahead,  I'm  ready  for  the  smelling  salts!"  exclaimed 
Gombarov,  jocularly,  from  the  operating  table. 

Sister  Angela,  Little  Sister  of  the  Poor,  held  one  of  his 
hands,  while  the  doctor  was  attaching  a  tube,  with  a  contri- 
vance at  one  end  of  it  to  fit  over  the  patient's  nose. 

"Now,  breathe  in! "  said  the  doctor,  in  a  cheery  voice. 

Gombarov  breathed  in  great  whiffs  of  anaesthetic,  and  soon 
felt  a  fierce  rushing  of  blood;  it  seemed  as  if  he  were  lying 
on  a  battlefield,  and  a  regiment  of  cavalry  dashed  across  his 
chest.  He  felt  as  if  he  were  dying,  and  curiously  enough,  he 
experienced  no  regrets  at  leaving  the  world.  His  hand,  drunken 
with  a  kind  of  last  passion,  gripped  tightly  the  hand  of  Sister 
Angela. 

He  remembered  no  more,  until  he  quietly  opened  his  eyes 
in  his  bed  in  a  large  room  containing  many  beds  and  looked 
up  at  the  white  ceiling  with  a  serenity  he  had  not  known  before. 
He  did  not  know  how  long  he  had  been  looking  thus,  when, 
closing  his  eyes  for  an  instant  in  delicious  relaxation,  he 
330 


LIFE'S  CHESSBOARD:  A  YEAR'S  MOVES 

reopened  them  to  find  himself  gazing  into  two  large  grey-blue 
eyes,  the  most  serene  he  had  ever  beheld.  They  were  Sister 
Angela's,  and  they  faintly  smiled  at  him. 

"How  is  the  poet?"  he  heard  her  whisper.  She  called  him 
the  poet,  and  his  bed  the  poet's  corner. 

"He  is  in  love!"  he  answered,  serenely  smiling. 

"She  is  a  lucky  girl!"  laughed  Sister  Angela. 

"No,  no,  I  don't  mean  that!    He  is  in  love  with  a  Queen!" 

"A  Queen?" 

"Yes!    The  Queen  who  rules  over  the  Seventh  Heavenl" 

"You  can't  have  seen  her!" 

"I'm  looking  at  her  now!    And  she  is  called  Sister  Angela!" 

"Go  on  with  your  blarney!"  said  Sister  Angela,  who  was  an 
Irishwoman  of  about  thirty-two,  chastely  attractive,  like  a 
Holbein  portrait.  "So  the  poet  is  in  love! "  she  laughed  again, 
and  ran  her  fingers  through  his  longish  dark  hair,  and,  still 
laughing,  walked  away. 

He  watched  her  tall,  austere,  hooded  figure  making  the 
rounds  of  the  beds.  She  moved  with  dignity,  indeed  like  a 
queen  not  of  this  earth.  There  was  in  her  stately  movements 
a  kind  of  serene  detachment,  a  kind  of  pitying  aloofness;  even 
in  the  pursuit  of  the  most  menial  and  disagreeable  tasks — 
tasks  which  would  have  made  any  woman  but  a  lover  quail — 
yet  conferring  upon  them  a  dignity  beside  which  the  dignities 
of  a  king's  palace  were  as  empty  formalities.  She  might 
have  served  as  a  model  for  the  Pietd,  holding  the  head  of 
Jesus  in  her  lap.  With  all  her  aloofness,  heightened  by  the 
austerity  of  her  robes  and  the  chaste  outlines  of  her  face,  she 
was  a  vessel  containing  the  distilled  essences  of  love,  which 
she  dispensed  to  many,  to  Jew,  Christian  and  pagan  alike,  and 
which  diminished  not  with  the  giving.  There  was  no  false 
solemnity  about  her,  and,  being  Irish,  she  was  not  above 
331 


BABEL 

exchanging  a  joke.  He  loved  her  mere  presence,  for  the 
serenity  it  evoked;  it  stilled  all  the  storms  and  turbulences 
of  his  soul,  which  became  like  a  mirrored  lake  of  quiet  waters, 
and  not  a  single  movement  or  gesture  of  hers  but  went  to 
the  making  of  his  peace.  She  charmed  the  latent  tiger  in  him, 
subjected  him,  perhaps,  to  some  spiritual  anaesthetic  of  her 
own.  All  those  weeks  of  stress  now  appeared  to  have  occurred 
years  ago,  seemed  to  recede  into  some  vast  and  distant  back- 
ground, as  tides  of  memories  on  the  shores  of  life  recede  into 
the  oblivion  of  vast  seas  of  forgetfulness.  The  figures  of 
Molly,  Anita,  Kathleen  and  Judith  became  as  non-existent; 
imagined  figures,  somewhere  lost  in  the  depths  of  the  vast 
serenity  of  his  unrippled  soul.  These  days  in  bed  were  his 
first  holiday  hi  years,  and  a  quiet  happiness  pervaded  him,  a 
happiness  he  had  not  known  before.  He  smiled  at  the  irony 
of  it. 

There  was  no  boredom  in  the  monotony  of  his  day's  routine. 
He  would  wake  at  five  or  six  in  the  morning  and  lie  in  bed, 
contemplating  out  of  the  window  the  delicate  traceries  of 
trees  outlined  in  the  grey-blue  haze  of  whiter  dawn,  and  these 
mystic  patterns,  lovely  as  the  visions  of  old  Chinese  paintings, 
grafted  themselves  upon  his  sensitive  frame  and  permeated 
him  with  their  serene  spirit.  Voices  would  rise  here  and  there 
from  the  beds,  but  lost  in  contemplation,  he  did  not  trouble 
about  them.  Presently  Sister  Angela  would  come  in,  and 
everything  would  grow  quiet  again.  Her  hooded  form  would, 
in  the  semi-darkness,  drop  on  its  knees  in  the  middle  of  the 
room,  facing  the  large  crucifix  on  the  distant  wall  and  in  a 
clear  vibrant  voice  pronounce  a  Latin  formula,  only  an 
occasional  word  of  which  he  understood;  but,  uttered  by 
Sister  Angela,  it  sounded  like  a  mysterious  incantation,  its 
mere  utterance  being  a  blessing  in  itself,  apart  from  any 
332 


LIFE'S  CHESSBOARD:  A  YEAR'S  MOVES 

blessing  it  was  doubtless  intended  to  invoke  of  an  invisible  deity. 

Then  she  would  rise,  and  simultaneously  the  lights  would  go 
up.  Gombarov's  being  Bed  Number  One,  she  would  start  her 
tasks  by  attending  to  him,  putting  up  a  screen  round  the  bed 
as  a  preliminary.  Then  a  colloquy  would  follow: 

"Good  morning,  Sister  Angela.    It's  good  to  see  you  again! w 

"And  how  is  the  poet  this  morning?" 

"Very  sad,  Sister  Angela!" 

"Sad  at  seeing  me,  poet!" 

"Heavens,  no!  Sad  at  the  prospect  of  having  to  leave  this 
bed!" 

"That's  something  to  be  sad  about!" 

"Of  not  having  Sister  Angela  to  say  good-morning  to!" 

"There  he  goes  with  his  blarney!  The  poet  is  incorrigible. 
One  might  think  he  was  an  Irishman! " 

"No,  he  means  it.  Don't  think  him  blasphemous,  but  he'd 
get  down  on  his  knees  to  her,  just  as  she  went  down  on  her 
knees  before  the  crucifix!" 

"You  do  say  such  things!"  But  she  was  not  angry.  "If 
it's  any  comfort  to  you,"  she  added,  "you'll  be  missed,  too!" 
And  she  playfully  and  soothingly  ran  her  fingers  through  his 
hair. 

Within  a  week,  he  was  allowed  to  take  short  walks  round 
the  room  and  he  helped  Sister  Angela  to  lift  up  the  blankets 
and  sheets  and  make  up  the  beds,  a  task  in  which,  owing  to 
Sister  Angela's  company,  he  found  a  curious  pleasure,  as  they 
blarneyed  one  another  and  exchanged  jokes. 

There  were  also  visits  from  Julius,  and  in  the  course  of  the 
fortnight  two  or  three  happy  letters  from  Winifred,  to  whom 
he  wrote  as  ardently,  without  telling  her  of  his  illness.  Alto- 
gether, he  was  as  happy  in  the  hospital  as  he  had  ever  been 
in  his  life.  The  conflicts  that  had  raged  all  his  life  within 
333 


BABEL 

him,  and  outside,  seemed  for  the  time  to  have  receded,  to  have 
become  lost  as  in  distant  horizons.  He  dimly  realised  that 
this  was  a  turning  point,  a  kind  of  rebirth.  Not  that  he  was 
blind  to  the  fact  of  his  drifting  as  in  a  calm,  and  of  life  and 
its  storms  being  yet  before  him,  for  he  was  almost  penniless, 
a  stranger  in  London,  and  possibly  as  far  from  his  unknown 
goal  as  he  had  ever  been.  Even  his  love,  which  was  waiting 
for  him  to  come  and  claim  it  as  his  own,  depended  so  much 
upon  a  successful  issue  of  his  adventure.  Nevertheless,  this 
interval  of  calm  braced  him,  gave  him  new  life,  attuned  his 
mind  philosophically  to  counter  new  onslaughts.  "I  don't 
know  where  I'm  going,  but  I'm  on  my  way!"  This  line 
from  an  American  popular  song  occurred  to  him.  It  was, 
in  its  way,  a  mystic  talisman,  a  receding  light  leading  him 
on! 

The  day  came  when  he  once  more  got  into  his  own  clothes, 
disinfected  and  cleansed  like  his  very  soul,  and  took  leave  of 
his  fortnight's  refuge  and  of  Sister  Angela,  who,  the  eternal 
mother  he  had  often  dreamt  of,  had  been  such  a  comfort  to 
him,  never  to  be  forgotten. 

"I  won't  forget  you.  I  have  prayed  for  you.  I  shall  pray 
for  you!"  were  her  words  of  farewell.  What  delicious  irony, 
he  thought,  in  this  devout  Catholic  woman  praying  for  him, 
who  was  half  Jew,  half  Pagan!  Why  not?  Any  God  would 
hear  Sister  Angela,  that  is,  if  there  were  a  God,  and  if  He 
listened  to  anybody! 

MISERABLE  PAWN,  OFF  THE  BOARD! 

It  was  a  cold,  damp  afternoon  when  he  left  the  hospital. 

A  fresh  breeze  blew,  and  seemed  to  go  to  the  heart  of  him. 

After  a  fortnight  indoors,  mostly  in  bed,  he  felt  weaker  than 

he  had  realised.    It  was  unpleasant  to  face  life  again,  on  such 

334 


LIFE'S  CHESSBOARD:  A  YEAR'S  MOVES 


a  day.  He  could  not  afford  a  taxi,  and  directed  his  footsteps 
towards  the  nearest  *bus.  As  he  walked  slowly,  he  saw  a 
familiar  figure  looking  into  the  window  of  a  bookshop.  It 
was  Alfred  Welsh,  his  companion  from  Naples  to  Paris.  He 
had  written  to  Welsh  only  a  few  days  before,  telling  him  of 
his  detention  in  the  hospital,  of  his  need  of  money  on  coming 
out.  Couldn't  Welsh  pay  the  several  pounds  he  owed  him? 
Welsh  did  not  reply  to  his  letter.  Welsh  turned  his  face  from 
the  window,  to  be  confronted  with  Gombarov.  They  exchanged 
greetings. 

"Did  you  get  my  letter,  Welsh?" 

"Yes." 

"Why  didn't  you  reply,  then?" 

"I  haven't  any  cash  to  spare." 

"What,  nothing?    You  have  a  job! " 

"Yes,  but  .  .  ." 

"You  mean  to  say,  you  have  a  job,  and  can't  spare  even  a 
part  of  what  you  owe  me?  I  helped  you  out  when  you  needed 
it.  Consider  my  position.  I  am  a  stranger  in  London,  and 
am  just  out  of  the  hospital.  And  it  isn't  as  if  I  wanted  to 
borrow  money  I  It's  a  debt." 

"Look  here,  Gombarov!  I  don't  consider  that  I  owe  you 
anything.  My  services  as  interpreter  in  Italy  were  worth 
something!  In  fact,  I'm  not  sure  that  you  don't  owe  me 
money!" 

"So  that's  the  way  you  look  at  it!  Good-by,  then.  And 
I  don't  want  to  see  you  again!" 

Gombarov  reached  his  miserable  lodgings  and,  greatly 
fatigued,  sat  down  to  rest.  He  experienced  a  keen  sense  of 
homelessness,  and  for  a  while  lost  heart.  He  must  get  out 
of  this,  he  thought.  He  must  find  something  more  cheerful. 
Perhaps,  in  Hampstead.  He  would  write  to  a  friend  on  the 

335 


BABEL 

New  World  for  a  loan,  which  had  been  once  offered  him,  but 
which  he  had  refused  at  the  time. 

He  was  not  abandoned,  as  he  had  thought.  The  next  day 
he  had  a  visit  from  Tom  Bowles,  the  young  painter,  who, 
curiously  enough,  had  been  introduced  to  him  by  Welsh; 
indeed,  the  same  man  who  had  written  to  him  some  months 
before  from  Holland,  telling  him  of  that  strange  meeting  with 
two  of  Gombarov's  Philadelphia  acquaintances  in  an  Amster- 
dam cafe.  Gombarov  related  his  experience  to  Bowles,  who 
detested  Welsh. 

"Just  like  that  blighter!"  said  the  visitor.  "But  do  let  me 
help  you  out.  I've  just  sold  a  couple  of  paintings,  and  can 
advance  you  ten  pounds,  if  you  like!" 

"Very  good  of  you,  Tom!  I  will  try  to  repay  you  as  soon 
as  I  can — not  in  Welsh's  way,  I  hope!" 

While  Bowles  was  writing  out  a  cheque,  Gombarov's  face 
broke  into  a  smile.  "Well,  well!"  he  reflected  to  himself. 
"I  had  no  idea  that  Angela's  prayers  would  prove  effective  so 
soon.  Why,  I  haven't  seen  Bowles  for  months,  and  here  he 
turns  up  just  as  I  need  him!" 

"I'll  tell  you  something  about  Welsh  that  will  make  you 
laugh,"  said  Bowles,  handing  him  the  cheque.  "You  remember 
Rugger,  don't  you?  Well,  when  he  got  out  of  Rugger  all 
that  Rugger  could  stand,  he  picked  up  with  another  art 
student,  Martin  by  name,  and  he  played  the  old  gag  about 
sharing  a  studio  together.  Martin,  poor  innocent,  found  a 
studio,  and  Welsh  installed  himself  there.  Of,  course,  he 
didn't  pay  a  farthing's  rent,  and  practically  lived  on  Martin. 
To  cap  the  climax,  Martin  turned  up  one  day  to  find  Welsh 
in  the  studio  with  a  street  girl,  and  would  you  believe  it,  the 
pair  were  making  use  not  of  Welsh's  cot,  mind  you, — but 
Martin's!  Did  you  ever  hear  the  like?  That  was  too  much 
336 


LIFE'S  CHESSBOARD:  A  YEAR'S  MOVES 

even  for  Martin,  who  left  the  studio  and  all  its  belongings 
in  Welsh's  possession.  .  .  ." 

"The  swine!"  Gombarov  couldn't  help  exclaiming. 

"That  isn't  alll "  went  on  Bowles.  "Some  weeks  afterwards, 
Martin  and  a  friend,  happening  to  be  dead  broke,  called  on 
Welsh  at  the  studio  on  the  chance  of  finding  a  bite  to  eat. 
When  they  broached  the  subject,  Welsh  assumed  a  depressed 
look  and  told  them  that  he  hadn't  had  a  decent  meal  in  days, 
until  their  hearts  were  touched.  So  off  went  Martin  and  his 
friend  and  got  hold  of  a  bit  of  money.  They  bought  food 
at  a  delicatessen  shop  and  trotted  back  to  the  studio  to  share 
it  with  Welsh.  Imagine  their  feelings  when  they  found 
the  blighter  gorging  on  a  huge  sirloin  steak — a  bottle  of 
wine,  too!" 

"The  swine!"  repeated  Gombarov. 

"But  I  haven't  finished  yet!  Then  Martin  and  his  friend 
put  their  heads  together,  and  took  the  landlady  into  their 
confidence.  The  landlady  knew  that  the  furniture  of  the 
studio  belonged  to  Martin,  and  she  wasn't  any  too  fond  of 
Welsh.  Later  in  the  day,  while  Welsh  was  out,  they  returned 
with  a  cart,  and  practically  stripped  the  studio." 

"I  should  have  given  a  lot  to  have  seen  Welsh's  face  when 
he  got  back." 

Gombarov  felt  greatly  cheered  by  Bowles's  company.  He 
liked  this  simple  fellow,  whose  nature  was  that  of  a  country- 
man. And  life  wasn't  altogether  vile,  with  fellows  like  him 
around. 

A  MOVE  TO  HAMPSTEAD 

By  borrowing  twenty  pounds  from  his  friend  on  the  New 
World  and  writing  a  few  articles  Gombarov  got  together  a 
small  reserve  fund. 

337 


BABEL 

In  the  early  spring  he  was  settled  in  a  large  top  studio 
room,  overlooking  Harapstead  Heath,  and  here  he  began  work- 
ing in  earnest  on  a  book,  which  was  to  consist  of  a  series  of 
impressions  of  America,  creative  in  character,  with  philosophic 
speculations  as  to  its  artistic  future.  He  showed  the  opening 
chapter  to  a  recent  acquaintance,  who  was  acting  for  a  large 
publishing  firm,  and  the  readers  of  this  firm  were  sufficiently 
enthusiastic  for  their  publishing  chief  to  send  for  Gombarov. 

"By  all  means,  go  on  with  the  book,"  said  Mr.  Brooke,  of 
Brooke  &  Co.,  "and  our  firm  would  be  glad  to  publish  it. 
The  terms  we  offer  are  not  bad,  considering  that  you  are  still 
a  young  man;  and  the  publication  of  the  book  would  do  you 
such  a  lot  of  good!  We  take  the  risks,  you  see.  That  the 
readers  are  enthusiastic  does  not  mean  the  book  will  sell. 
But  we  like  to  encourage  young  men  of  promise.  In  our  own 
way,  we  are  philanthropists,  I  assure  you!  The  imprint  of 
our  firm  should  prove  a  good  advertisement  for  you.  .  .  ." 

Gombarov  left  Mr.  Brooke,  greatly  encouraged  in  spite  of 
the  cold  water  thrown  on  any  expectation  he  may  have  had 
of  making  money  out  of  his  book.  If  the  readers  of  so  famous 
a  firm  as  Brooke  &  Co.  were  enthusiastic,  then,  surely,  he  had 
no  reason  to  feel  discouraged. 

For  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  sat  down  to  his  creative  work 
regularly  every  morning,  began  to  discipline  himself  to  the 
hard,  steady  toil,  without  which  no  art  or  craft  can  be  mas- 
tered. He  lived  frugally,  prepared  most  of  his  own  meals, 
shunned  bohemianism  except  on  occasion.  He  was  no  facile 
writer,  and  it  astonished  him  to  find  what  seemingly  effortless 
effects  could  be  obtained  with  very  intense  effort.  At  the 
end  of  many  days'  work  he  would  feel  as  though  he  were 
tottering  under  the  accumulated  avalanche  of  words.  Daily, 
after  a  morning's  labours,  he  would  fling  himself  face  down- 
338 


LIFE'S  CHESSBOARD :  A  YEAR'S  MOVES 

ward  on  the  ground  of  Hampstead  Heath  and  feel  a  renewal  of 
strength,  a  new  infused  warmth  from  contact  with  the  motherly 
earth.  He  would  lie  for  an  hour  or  more,  tenderly,  passionately 
clutching  at  the  grass,  breathing  in  the  odours  of  the  soil, 
filling  himself  with  an  earthly  ardency,  and  the  sap  of  life 
would  run  up  his  limbs  and  body  and  to  his  head,  as  the  sap 
runs  up  a  tree.  Almost  unwillingly  he  would  tear  himself 
away  from  the  spot  and  go  back  to  work,  and  the  gathered 
sap  would  flow  out  of  him  to  the  paper  at  the  point  of  the 
pen.  It  was  hard  work.  "I  work  not  so  much  by  inspiration 
as  by  desperation,"  he  would  say  to  himself. 

And,  oh,  the  sheer  physical  weariness  at  the  end  of  the  day! 
No  insatiate  woman  would  take  so  much  out  of  a  man  after 
a  long  debauch.  There  was  sometimes  this  comfort:  the 
result  exceeded  one's  expectations — yet  how  short  of  one's 
hopes!  A  mother,  upon  seeing  a  more  beautiful  baby  than 
her  own,  could  not  feel  half  the  anguish  an  author  feels  in  his 
knowledge  that  beauty  can  go  farther  than  he  has  taken  her, 
has  indeed  no  stopping  point.  The  simplest  thoughts  seem 
to  become  complex  and  involved;  language  fails  one — or  worse, 
one  fails  language;  the  frontiers  between  rhetoric  and  poetry 
are  often  unmarked  and  indefinable;  one  keeps  on  wondering 
whether  one's  imagination  has  sounded  false  notes;  whether 
here  one  has  pitched  one's  voice  too  high,  or  there  has  raised 
it  in  anger  to  a  note  too  intimate.  There  was  joy  in  the 
conception;  doubtless,  there  would  be  joy  also  in  the  final 
giving  of  birth;  but  between  these  two  points  there  was  the 
long,  painful  gestation,  with  an  occasional  spark  of  pleasure 
in  the  dim  consciousness  of  one's  fulfillment. 

Fortunately,  his  relations  with  Winifred  continued  to  be 
satisfactory. 


339 


BABEL 

BISHOP   OFF   THE  BOARD! 

Julius  had  moved  into  the  same  house  as  Gotnbarov,  but 
they  saw  little  of  one  another.  Julius  was  busy  with  his  own 
affairs,  which  included  a  daily  two-hour  devotion  to  an  old 
invalid  lady,  who  had  engaged  him  to  read  to  her.  Even 
philosophers  must  live! 

"I  may  be  going  to  Paris!"  said  Julius  one  day,  looking 
as  solemn  as  a  bishop. 

"Where  will  you  get  the  money?" 

"You  know  the  old  lady,  to  whom  I  read  every  day?  She 
has  only  a  few  weeks  to  live,  and  I  have  an  idea  she'll  make 
me  some  sort  of  gift  before  she  dies.  She's  wealthy,  and  I 
imagine  shell  let  me  have  at  least  fifty  pounds." 

"That's  a  good  sum!" 

"I'm  hoping,"  said  Julius,  "that  she'll  make  it  seventy-five. 
One  can  do  something  with  seventy-five!" 

One  June  morning,  some  weeks  following  their  conversation. 
Julius  came  into  Gombarov's  room,  looking  very  solemn,  a 
long  envelope  in  his  hand.  He  drew  out  its  contents  and, 
without  a  word,  handed  them  to  Gombarov.  It  was  a  cheque 
for  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  accompanied  by  a  note  inform- 
ing him  of  the  old  lady's  death. 

"Well,  you  are  in  clover.  It's  twice  as  much  as  you  had 
hoped  for!" 

"I  wish  she  had  made  it  three  hundred! "  was  all  Julius  said. 

For  even  philosophers  are  only  human. 

A  fortnight  later  Julius  left  London  for  good.  He  went  to 
Paris. 

Gombarov  felt  hurt.  While  Julius  was  struggling  in  Berlin, 
Gombarov  had  occasionally  helped  him  with  small  sums  of 
money,  and  he  thought  that  Julius,  remembering  this  and 
340 


LIFE'S  CHESSBOARD:  A  YEAR'S  MOVES 

knowing  his  straitened  circumstances,  would  come  to  him  and 
say:  "Look  here,  John,  you  once  helped  me  when  I  was  down 
on  my  luck,  and  now  it's  my  turn.  Well,  here  is  a  five-pound 
note,  anyhow!"  Instead,  Julius  merely  said  to  him  before 
taking  his  departure:  "If  you  are  short  within  the  next  few 
weeks,  write  to  me,  and  I'll  advance  you  anything  up  to  five 
pounds!"  Gombarov  did  not  avail  himself  of  the  offer,  for 
authors,  like  philosophers,  are  only  human. 
And  the  bishop  was  swept  off  his  chessboard. 

AFTER  THE  BISHOP — THE  KNIGHT! 

"Leon  could  never  have  done  that!"  mused  Gombarov, 
mentally  comparing  his  two  friends. 

It  was  only  a  few  days  after  Julius's  departure  that  Gom- 
barov received  a  letter  from  Leon  Bayliss,  who  had  been  his 
most  intimate  friend  in  Philadelphia.  Leon  was  on  his  way 
to  spend  some  weeks  in  Europe  to  see  the  paintings  of  the 
moderns.  He  intended  spending  a  fortnight  in  London. 

Gombarov  looked  forward  to  the  arrival  of  his  old  friend, 
whom  he  regarded  as  a  very  knight  of  generosity  and  chivalry. 
They  had  been  friends  for  ten  years,  and  their  friendship  had 
withstood  every  test  that  would  have  proved  fatal  to  ordinary 
loyalties.  During  the  year's  separation  they  kept  up  a  regular 
and  affectionate  correspondence. 

Something  must  have  happened  to  both  of  them  in  the  year 
of  their  separation,  something  incomprehensible,  affecting  their 
relationship.  Both  of  them  must  have  dimly  felt  this  on  the 
very  day  of  Leon's  arrival.  Looking  back  on  it  later,  Gom- 
barov realised  that  there  had  been  some  constraint  on  both 
sides,  and  that  while  he  had  felt  sad,  Leon,  so  unlike  himself, 
was  the  first  to  show  sparks  of  resentment.  He  read  to  Leon 
a  chapter  or  two  of  his  book,  and  Leon  picked  flaws  at  the 
341 


BABEL 

least  opportunity.  It  was  so  unlike  Leon  to  quibble.  Only 
much  later  did  it  occur  to  him  that  the  complexities  and 
subtleties  of  modern  life  kill  friendships  as  they  kill  love  and 
other  virtues  once  highly  regarded.  They  simply  entangle 
them  in  all  kinds  of  nets.  In  those  earlier  years  of  their 
friendship,  Gombarov,  intimidated  and  crushed  by  his  repres- 
sions, his  family  troubles  and  his  continual  strife  with  circum- 
stance, had  leaned  greatly  on  Leon  for  support  and  encourage- 
ment. But  during  his  year  in  London,  in  which,  solitary 
and  unaided,  he  had  waged  a  struggle  hardly  less  fierce,  if 
more  interesting,  he  had  become,  unknown  to  himself,  of 
sterner  metal;  he  had  found  something  of  his  own  potential 
soul,  such  as  it  was.  Leon,  apparently,  was  the  first  to  note 
this  change.  His  friend's  moral  dependence  gone,  Leon  could 
not  help  but  withhold  his  tenderness  also.  If  all  this  became 
clear  later,  it  was  painful  enough  at  the  time.  For  his  friend 
showed  resentment,  and  Gombarov  resented  this  resentment. 
Not  a  word  had  been  said,  but  their  resentments  showed  in 
spite  of  outward  formalities  of  friendship. 

Just  before  Leon's  departure  for  Paris,  a  little  scene  occurred 
that  clearly  showed  how  things  stood  between  them. 

"Leon,"  said   Gombarov.    "You  will   remember   that 
months  before  my  leaving  for  Europe  I  let  you  have  a  1( 
of  fifty  dollars  for  your  parents,  who  were  then  passing  throi 
financial  crisis.    You  promised  that  I  should  have  it  back  ii 
three  months,  and  now  eighteen  months  have  gone  by. 
shouldn't  worry  you  even  now,  were  it  not  that  things 
bad  with  me.    I  am  writing  this  book,  and  earning 
nothing." 

Leon  looked  cold  and  resentful,  but  said  nothing. 

"Look  here,  Leon,"  went  on  Gombarov,  persuasively.    "Yc 
seem  to  resent  my  speaking  of  this.    After  all,  I  am  not  aski 
342 


LIFE'S  CHESSBOARD:  A  YEAR'S  MOVES 

for  the  return  of  numerous  sums  I  advanced  to  you  as  a  friend, 
while  you  were  struggling  in  London  and  Philadelphia.  There 
can  be  no  question  of  money  between  friends.  But  this  par- 
ticular sum  I  advanced  to  your  parents  for  their  business; 
it  is  a  legitimate  debt.  And  all  your  brothers  have  jobs. 
Consider,  too,  that  for  years  I  sweated  to  save  some  money 
to  take  me  to  Europe,  and  that  was  part  of  it,  and  I  let  you 
have  it  on  condition  that  it  was  returned  in  time  for  use  on 
my  journey.  My  own  folks  are  having  a  desperate  time  and 
I  can  send  them  nothing.  And  I  am  fighting  for  my  life! 
Can't  you  see  that?" 

"Ill  send  it  as  soon  as  I  can,"  said  Leon,  coldly. 

Gombarov  saw  the  futility  of  saying  more.  It  was  his 
friend's  will  to  misunderstand.  Leon's  unfairness  made  him 
sad.  First  Julius,  now  Leon.  It  made  him  see  that  nothing 
is  certain  on  this  earth,  that  all  things  are  possible,  that  one 
must  be  astonished  at  nothing,  that  one  must  accept  everything. 

"Don't  be  sentimental!"  said  Leon,  when  Gombarov  offered 
to  see  him  off  on  his  departure  for  Paris. 

Gombarov  flushed  with  shame,  but  it  was  not  on  his  own 
account.  For  he  had  once  considered  his  friend  the  very 
soul  of  generosity  and  chivalry. 

And  his  chessboard  lost  one  of  its  knights. 

CASTLE   BROUGHT   INTO  PLAY 

But  new  friends  and  strangers  insisted  on  being  kind.  What 
were  these  but  long  idle  castles  on  a  chessboard,  brought  last 
into  play,  when  the  early  friends,  the  pawns  and  the  knights 
and  the  bishops,  have  failed  you? 

If  some  think  this  a  far-fetched  analogy,  that  a  chess- 
board has  only  forty-eight  pieces,  whereas  the  author's  char- 
acters, having  their  reactions  on  the  "hero,"  the  "king"  of 
343 


BABEL 

the  chessboard,  have  already  exceeded  that  number,  let  us 
draw  upon  the  more  generous  and  intricate  chessboard  of  the 
Chinese,  which  can  boast  of  no  less  than  256  squares,  and  is 
doubtless  a  brother  to  the  famous  Chinese  puzzle,  Life  itself! 

This  was  how  Gombarov  met  Jan  Maczishek: 

One  day  he  saw  an  extraordinary  mask  on  a  wall  in 
Douglass's  studio.  It  was  huge,  modelled  out  of  some  sub- 
stance like  clay,  and  painted  red,  black  and  gold.  It  might 
have  been  the  image  of  the  god  of  some  African  tribe. 

"Where  did  you  get  that?"  he  asked,  impressed  by  the 
power  and  strange  beauty  of  the  mask. 

"Oh,  that!"  said  Douglass,  with  some  condescension.  "It 
was  made  by  a  Polish  boy.  He's  a  sculptor,  and  only 
twenty-one!" 

"I'd  like  to  meet  him." 

Douglass  gave  him  Maczishek's  address.  But  Gombarov 
put  off  writing  to  him,  until  the  matter  wholly  passed  from 
his  mind.  One  day  he  was  astonished  to  hear  from  the 
sculptor,  who  said  that  he  had  heard  of  Gombarov's  desire 
to  make  his  acquaintance.  Would  he  call  at  his  studio  on 
Thursday  afternoon? 

When  they  met  at  last  in  the  doorway  of  Maczishek's  studio, 
they  looked  at  one  another  with  a  peculiar  intentness,  as  if 
they  were  sizing  each  other  up,  and  strongly  gripped  hands. 

"Sit  down,"  said  Maczishek.  "I  won't  insult  you  by  offer- 
ing you  tea.  We'll  have  some  beer.  You  drink  beer?" 

"To  be  sure!" 

Maczishek  poured  out  two  large  glasses,  then  sat  down, 
stretching  his  feet  on  a  colossal  bearded  head  in  Portland 
stone,  which  had  some  remote  resemblance  to  royal  heads  in 
Assyrian  bas-reliefs. 

"What's  that  you  have  your  feet  on?"  asked  Gombarov. 
344 


LIFE'S  CHESSBOARD:  A  YEAR'S  MOVES 

"That's  my  footstool— the  head  of  Jehovah!"  laughed 
Maczishek. 

They  eyed  one  another  with  masculine  sympathy.  Of 
medium  stature  like  Gombarov,  Maczishek  had  the  more  lithe 
and  alert  figure,  and  accustomed  to  handle  great  chunks  of 
stone  and  marble,  his  arms,  wrists  and  hands  gave  indications 
of  great  strength,  yet  were  distinguished  by  grace.  His  black, 
straight  hair,  like  an  American  Indian's,  was  combed  back; 
his  eyes,  wide-parted,  were  dark  and  intelligently  alert,  and 
between  them,  curving  gracefully  downward,  was  a  finely 
shaped,  sensitive  yet  virile  aquiline  nose.  An  eagle! 

Meanwhile  his  host's  eyes  were  not  idle,  as  became  clear 
by  his  remark: 

"I'd  like  to  sculpture  you.  I'd  call  your  head  'The  Moun- 
taineer.' " 

"Why  the  Mountaineer?     I've  never  thought  of  it!" 

"Perhaps  not.  Few  of  us,  nowadays,  are  doing  what  we 
were  cut  out  to  do.  You  may  be  putting  all  your  moun- 
taineering into  your  writing,  just  as  I  am  putting  all  my 
primitive  impulses  into  sculpture!" 

"I  should  rather  have  thought  of  myself  as  an  Arab,  travel- 
ling in  a  caravan  across  the  sands,  from  oasis  to  oasis! "  laughed 
Gombarov. 

"There's  not  so  much  difference.  They  are  both  nomads. 
And  every  artist  is  a  nomad  in  spirit.  He  transmutes  his 
desire  for  adventure  into  art.  What  is  Homer's  Odyssey,  or 
Don  Quixote,  or  the  great  continuous  pageant  of  Shakespeare 
but  life  seen  through  the  eyes  of  a  man  travelling  in  a  caravan? 
Shakespeare  stayed  at  home,  so  all  his  nomadism  went  into 
his  art,  and  not  a  scrap  was  wasted  in  travelling  I" 

While  Maczishek  was  helping  his  visitor  to  more  beer, 
Gombarov  rose  to  look  at  the  sculptures.    He  eyed  a  group 
345 


BABEL 

of  figures,  reduced  more  or  less  to  an  abstraction  of  curves 
and  planes. 

"That's  the  'Dancers,' "  explained  Maczishek.  "I  had  an 
architectural  idea  in  mind.  It's  a  statue  that  might  decorate 
the  entrance  of  a  factory.  Nothing  sentimental  about  that, 
is  there?  Why  should  there  be?  We  are  living  in  an  unsenti- 
mental age.  It's  a  ruthless,  pitiless  age,  and  all  of  man's 
virility  and  ferocity  goes  into  his  machinery.  I  have  inte- 
grated and  symbolised  in  this  statue  the  natural  savagery  of 
modern  man  as  manifested  in  his  machinery.  Fauvists  like 
Matisse  are  right  in  their  reaction  from  civilisation  towards 
the  primitive.  Cubists  like  Picasso  are  right  in  giving  us 
an  art  that  embodies  the  mechanics  of  our  age.  But,  after 
all,  each  gives  only  half  the  truth.  I  am  trying  to  give  the 
synthesis  of  the  two,  the  primitive,  savage  spirit  incarnated 
in  mechanics:  cruelty  with  nuance,  which  distinction  we  see 
in  the  difference  between,  say,  a  Maori  spear  and  the  French 
machine-gun." 

"Don't  you  hate  it?" 

"You  mean  the  civilisation  that  has  contrived  the  machine- 
gun?  No,  not  exactly.  I  am  of  my  time,  and  I  accept  it 
as  a  new  aspect  of  the  eternal  adventure.  I  accept  it  as  any 
artist  must  accept  the  material  of  his  time  for  his  art.  Modern 
shapes  have  their  own  beauty.  There  are  the  grain  elevators, 
gas  works,  railway  engines,  sea  liners,  motor  cars,  underground 
trains,  giant  cranes,  all  waiting  to  be  adapted  to  a  new  art 
convention.  We  are  creating  a  new  language  to  express 
modern  man  and  all  the  workings  of  his  intricate  brain.  It's 
easy  enough  to  do  a  thing  in  the  Greek  manner.  Look  at  this." 
The  sculptor  produced  from  a  shelf  a  small  marble,  a  female 
torso.  "It's  one  of  my  earlier  works." 

"How  gracefully  Greek!"  exclaimed  Gombarov.  "But  not 
346 


LIFE'S  CHESSBOARD:  A  YEAR'S  MOVES 

Royal  Academy  Greek!  The  real  thing,  with  all  the  life  of 
the  model!" 

"She  was  alive  enough!"  said  the  sculptor.  "She  was 
willing  to  do  more  than  sit  for  me!  But  I  wouldn't  have  it. 
I  don't  like  having  to  deal  with  intellectual  women.  They 
make  such  demands  on  one!  They  give  their  bodies  only  in 
exchange  for  what  they  call  one's  soul.  I  keep  that  for  my 
art!  If  one  must  deal  intimately  with  a  woman,  it  were  best 
if  one  had  a  Malay  or  a  Maori  girl,  or  one  of  Gauguin's  Tahi- 
tian  women." 

"Yet  you  accept  this  machine  civilisation,  which  has  pro- 
duced our  neurotic  women!" 

"I  accept  it  for  my  art,  just  as  Dante  accepted  his  for  his 
art.  Dante  saw  life  as  a  pageant  in  hell.  There  was  devilish 
beauty  in  what  he  saw,  and  there  is  devilish  beauty  in  what 
I  see.  There  is  adventure  in  this!" 

This  young  man  of  twenty-one  talked  with  the  mature  air 
of  one  for  whom  earth  and  life  held  no  secrets.  There  was 
nothing  blase  in  this.  He  was  child-like  and  lively,  natural 
and  joyous,  a  civilised  savage,  in  his  way  a  god  who  tried  to 
discern  and  establish  some  sort  of  order  in  the  chaos  about 
him. 

"It's  like  this,"  he  explained.  "If  you  were  to  paint  a 
picture  of  Confusion  or  Chaos,  you'd  still  have  to  stick  to 
some  laws  of  composition.  Chaos  has  its  own  hidden  har- 
mony, without  which  it  cannot  exist.  Herakleitos,  the  father 
of  modern  philosophy,  has  said:  'Hidden  harmony  is  better 
than  manifest.'  Once  you  can  discover  what  keeps  this  modern 
chaos  together,  you  have  the  secret  of  all  life  and  art.  For 
something  does  keep  it  together,  doesn't  it?  The  artist 
reduces  it  all  to  a  single  image,  a  single  picture  or  piece  of 
sculpture,  just  as  in  the  'Three  Fates'  in  the  Elgin  room  at 
347 


BABEL 

the  British  Museum  we  have  the  whole  soul  of  Greece.  Picasso 
binds  this  modern  chaos  together  by  means  of  mechanics, 
Matisse  by  blood  arteries.  But  it  is  both!  Human  blood 
runs  through  the  steel  girders  made  by  man,  and  hi  them  the 
soul  is  imprisoned." 

"I  am  inclined  to  side  with  Matisse,"  said  Gombarov.  "I 
am  for  daemons  as  against  dynamos." 

"You  may  be  right!"  said  Maczishek.  "Yet  may  not  the 
daemons  of  men  be  twirling  in  these  fierce  dynamos?  Not 
that  I  am  always  certain  that  the  moderns  are  right,  for  there 
are  moments  of  doubt  and  despair  when  I  long  to  get  away 
from  it  all.  I  sometimes  long  to  get  back  to  the  Greeks,  but 
one  can  do  that  only  as  a  reaction.  One's  own  age  holds  an 
artist  hi  chains.  Some  day  I  may  decide  to  go  to  Easter 
Island  or  some  place  like  that,  live  like  a  native  and  produce 
tribal  art." 

"Do  you  manage  to  sell  any  of  your  work?" 

"Only  occasionally.  Then  I  only  get  ten  pounds  or  so 
for  a  statue.  I  earn  my  living  chiefly  by  doing  some  com- 
mercial correspondence  hi  the  City,  thanks  to  my  knowledge 
of  German,  French  and  Spanish.  And  you?" 

"I  do  an  occasional  article,  or  translation.  Pure  hack! 
One  of  these  days  I  expect  to  be  chucked  out  of  my  room!* 

"Don't  you  worry  about  that,"  said  Maczishek  with  evident 
concern.  "There's  a  cot!  You  can  come  and  sleep  here  if 
you  like.  I  live  at  home  with  my  sister.  Artists  must  help 
one  another!" 

Truly,  here  was  a  castle  brought  into  play,  a  castle  to  the 
rescue! 

Maczishek  was  turning  over  drawing  after  drawing  from  a 
large  pile  on  the  table,  while  Gombarov  expressed  his  admira- 
tion of  their  intense  sense  of  life,  of  their  simplicity  and 
348 


LIFE'S  CHESSBOARD:  A  YEAR'S  MOVES 

economy  of  line,  which  could  go  no  farther.  A  single  firm 
line  seemed  to  bound  a  small  universe,  whether  it  was  a  bird, 
monkey  or  human  being.  Maczishek  held  an  extraordinary 
facility  for  drawing  animals. 

"You  said  you  liked  that  one,"  said  the  artist,  delighted 
with  his  visitor's  unbounded  admiration  of  the  drawing  of  a 
stork.  "I  shall  be  pleased  to  give  it  to  you!" 

They  could  not  have  been  greater  friends  if  they  had  known 
each  other  ten  years. 

"Now,  let's  go  to  Soho  and  have  a  bite  to  eat!"  suggested 
Maczishek. 

It  was  an  extraordinary  meal.  They  went  into  a  delica- 
tessen shop,  where  Maczishek  bought  a  half  loaf  of  bread 
and  a  half  pound  of  Gruyere  cheese,  after  which  they  turned 
into  a  public  house  in  Old  Compton  Street  and,  sitting  down 
before  a  small  table,  ordered  two  mugs  of  beer.  Maczishek 
pulled  out  a  knife  and  shared  out  the  bread  and  the  cheese. 
Gombarov  felt  as  happy  as  a  happy  king.  The  joy  of  life 
that  was  in  Maczishek  infected  him,  opened  up  the  rich 
springs  hidden  in  him  under  strata  of  accumulation. 

"I  say,  Maczishek,  what  made  you  come  to  England?" 

"My  father  was  a  Pole,  my  mother  a  Frenchwoman.  I 
was  born  in  France;  so  strictly  speaking,  I  am  a  Frenchman. 
I  wasn't  going  to  waste  a  couple  of  years  in  the  army.  And 
London  is  as  good  a  place  to  work  in  as  any.  Nationality 
and  national  art  are  dead,  and  there's  no  reason  why  one 
shouldn't  work  anywhere.  As  I  sit  here  talking  to  you,  I 
do  not  feel  that  I  am  talking  to  a  Jew,  a  Russian,  or  an 
American,  but  just  to  a  man,  or  better,  an  artist.  Art  is  the 
only  Fatherland,  and  wherever  artists  meet  they  can  talk  to 
one  another  and  understand  one  another — not  at  all  like  diplo- 
mats, who  try  to  throw  dust  into  each  other's  eyes!" 

349 


BABEL 

"Come  to  think  of  it,"  said  Gombarov,  "it  is  astonishing 
to  find  London  so  full  of  foreign  artists.  It  was  not  so  long 
ago  that  all  English  art  was  produced  by  Englishmen.  It  is 
odd,  too,  that  here  am  I,  born  in  a  little  Ukrainian  village 
and  naturalished  an  American,  talking  to  you,  Franco-Pole, 
here  in  London!" 

"Do  you  realise  the  full  significance  of  that?" 
"Of  the  trifling  fact  that  we  are  talking  here  together?" 
"Yes.  But  it's  not  such  a  trifling  fact  as  would  seem  on 
the  surface.  England  is  ancient  Rome  all  over  again.  The 
arts  of  Rome  in  her  decadence  were  to  a  great  extent  produced 
by  foreigners.  Don't  you  see,  it's  like  this.  When  a  body 
is  young  and  lusty  it  is  egotistic.  When  it  is  old  and  about 
to  fall  apart,  it  has  less  resistance  and  admits  all  sorts  of  alien 
microbes.  And  an  Empire  is  very  much  like  a  human  body. 
It  is  a  condition  that  applies  to  the  whole  Western  world,  in 
particular  to  France,  Germany  and  England.  Morally,  the 
British  Empire  takes  hi  all  that  world  upon  which  it  has  forced 
machinery  and  industrialism:  in  these  lie  the  significance  of 
modern  Anglo-Saxon  civilisation.  All  these  countries  com- 
pose, in  a  sense,  one  machine,  one  Empire.  If  one  part 
breaks,  the  whole  machine  goes  out  of  order.  So  we  have 
no  wars;  nevertheless,  these  countries  may  be  just  decaying, 
dying  of  old  age,  wearing  out  just  as  human  limbs  or  parts 
of  machines  wear  out.  We,  modern  artists,  are  the  first  to 
see  this,  and  so  we  may  be  performing  a  useful  function  in 
injecting  new  life  into  old  bodies!  We  may  be  the  barbarians, 
the  saviours  of  decaying  humanity!" 

This  audacious  thinking  amazed  Gombarov,  who  began  to 
consider  Maczishek  the  most  valuable  of  his  acquaintances. 
What  a  curious  combination  of  simplicity  and  complexity! 
But  Maczishek  was  more  than  an  acquaintance.    He  was 

350 


LIFE'S  CHESSBOARD:  A  YEAR'S  MOVES 

a  friend,  whose  generosity  to  Gombarov  did  not  stop  with 
his  offer  of  a  cot  in  his  studio.  A  fortnight  after  their  first 
meeting  Maczishek  called  at  Gombarov's  and  unwrapped  a 
heavy  parcel  he  had  brought  with  him.  He  drew  out  a  small 
marble,  a  standing  boy  stretching  himself. 

"Do  you  like  it?"  he  asked. 

"Magnificent!"  said  Gombarov,  with  enthusiasm. 

"Well,  you  can  have  it!" 

"What,  you  give  me  the  statue?  I  love  it,  but  how  can  I 
deprive  you  of  your  bread  and  butter?" 

"Never  mind!  I  want  you  to  have  it,  because  I  like 
you!" 

What  could  one  say  after  that?  It  was  a  great  honour  to 
be  liked  by  Maczishek. 

"By  the  way,"  said  Gombarov,  "I've  been  talking  about 
you  to  various  people.  Tobias  Bagg  wants  to  meet  you.  He 
knows  a  lot  of  people  who  could  be  useful  to  you!" 

"I  don't  want  to  meet  that  man,"  said  Maczishek.  "I  was 
at  the  exhibition  the  other  day  where  I  have  a  couple  of 
statues.  I  happened  to  be  standing  just  by  them,  when  a  man 
and  a  lady  stopped  in  front  of  them.  He  pronounced  my 
name  contemptuously,  with  a  kind  of  sneeze.  I  walked  up 
to  him,  and  said:  'Sir,  that  name  is  pronounced  Jan  Mac- 
zishek! I  know  the  correct  pronunciation  because  it  happens 
to  belong  to  me!'  And  I  walked  away.  Someone  at  the 
gallery  told  me  it  was  Tobias  Bagg." 

A  fortnight  later  Gombarov  approached  him  again,  with 
the  news  that  Bagg  wanted  to  buy  the  two  statues  at  the 
exhibition.  "He  is  an  artist  himself,"  said  Gombarov,  "and 
he  can't  pay  much,  but  if  the  terms  are  within  his  purse  he 
will  buy  them." 

"Will  he  give  fifteen  pounds  for  the  two?" 
351 


BABEL 

"I  am  sure  he  will!" 

Maczishek  was  hard  up.    And  he  was  neither  sufficiently 
well-known  nor  sufficiently  dead  to  command  large  prices. 
And  so  Bagg  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  Maczishek. 

AN    AUDACIOUS    MOVE 

And  Gombarov's  Queen  was  still  there,  not  at  the  King's 
side,  it  is  true,  but  at  the  other  end  of  the  board.  What  piece 
has  fewer  liberties  than  a  King?  Our  Western  chess-board 
is  a  constitutional  monarchy;  it  is  possible  that  even  the 
chess-board  has  been  influenced  by  political  considerations; 
the  ancient  chess-board  may  have  been  a  wholly  different 
thing.  But  whether  in  autocratic  days  the  chess  King  had 
powers  denied  him  today,  the  Queen  has  remained  the  flighty, 
reckless  creature  she  is,  and  if  she  be  indiscreet  she  may  be 
bowled  over  by  a  bishop,  knight  or  pawn,  the  latter  hardly 
more  than  a  mere  page!  And  now,  imagine,  if  you  can,  a 
King  in  revolt  against  all  rules  of  kingdom,  flying  to  his 
Queen,  the  better  to  keep  his  eye  on  her,  across  a  whole 
diagonal  of  squares!  Woe  to  the  King  who  rebels! 

The  new  year  was  approaching;  by  sticking  at  it  Gombarov 
had  nearly  finished  his  book.  He  turned  his  thoughts  to 
crossing  the  Atlantic  to  see  Winifred.  The  thought  buoyed 
him  up,  helped  him  to  persist  on  the  final  chapters.  A  feverish 
energy  sometimes  kept  him  at  work  both  day  and  night. 
From  the  other  side  of  the  sea  Winifred  was  clamouring  for 
a  sight  of  him.  Passionate  letters  came  two  or  three  times 
a  week,  begging,  imploring  and  entreating  him  to  come  and 
see  her: 

"If  only  for  one  wee  little  week,  one  day,  one  hour,  or  even 
five  little  seconds!" 

352 


LIFE'S  CHESSBOARD:  A  YEAR'S  MOVES 

"I  think  I  cannot  wait  much  longer — oh,  come  soon,  my 
dear,  my  dear!" 

"All  this  time  without  you  is  terrible — it  has  been  the  most 
barren  year  of  my  life! " 

"If  you  come  you  will  not  be  sorry — I  am  living  for  this 
alone — I  simply  must  see  you!" 

"If  you  come,  I  am  yours,  to  do  with  as  you  please!" 

"Even  the  terrible,  hellish  New  York  would  seem  like 
heaven,  if  you  would  only  come!" 

"And  so  you  say  you  are  coming,  actually  coming.  What 
boat,  my  own  dear,  when,  when,  when?" 

A  fine  lover  was  he  not  to  respond  at  once  to  such  tender 
appeals!  It  was  true  that  Winifred  and  her  mother  were 
planning  to  come  to  Europe  again  six  months  hence,  but  that 
was  a  long  time  to  wait,  and  what  with  her  appeals  and  his 
own  hunger  for  a  sight  of  her,  he  was  seized  with  an  all- 
consuming  desire  to  do  the  reckless,  audacious  thing,  to  go 
to  her  at  all  costs! 

Apart  from  her  appeals  and  his  own  desire,  he  was  moved 
to  this  decision  by  a  wild,  irresistible  impulse  to  do  the  reck- 
less, audacious  thing  for  its  own  sake.  He  deemed  himself 
over-cautious,  and  his  hard,  repressed  life — so  it  seemed  to 
him — had  paralyzed  his  will  to  act  on  impulse.  He  must 
break  the  spell  that  held  him,  must  act  just  to  prove  to  him- 
self that  he  could  act.  Yet  could  he  forget  the  barriers  to 
action,  the  simple  lack  of  money?  Why,  he  had  hardly  even 
enough  to  take  him  there,  to  say  nothing  of  the  money  he 
would  require  to  stay  there  a  fortnight  or  a  month,  and  to 
bring  him  back.  Fine  lover,  indeed,  to  think  of  such  trifles! 
But  there  would  be  no  audacity  in  his  decision  if  he  were 
blessed  with  a  fat  purse.  A  multi-millionaire  wouldn't  think 
twice  of  it!  In  short,  the  whole  thing  seemed  impossible, 
353 


BABEL 

but  he  wanted  to  do  the  impossible  because  it  was  the  impos- 
sible; if  not  exactly  impossible,  then  simply  foolish.  Many 
a  foolish  man  has  won  the  Victoria  Cross,  and  from  the  worldly 
point  of  view  Don  Quixote  was  something  of  a  fool.  His 
love  for  her  was  great,  and  he  felt  the  need  of  making  a 
heroic  gesture  to  prove  its  greatness.  He  wanted  to  do  some- 
thing sublimely  ridiculous.  Considering  his  position,  the 
action  he  was  contemplating  was  beautifully  foolish.  But 
what  a  lover's  gesture!  Three  thousand  miles  just  to  see  a 
girl — then  three  thousand  miles  back — not  bad  for  a  mere 
beggar!  Surely,  after  that  gesture,  his  Dulcinea  could  never 
again  assume  the  garb  of  Aldonza!  Never  would  Winifred 
again  forsake  him!  Could  she  even  think  of  it? 

From  his  friends  Gombarov  got  together  a  sufficient  sum 
to  take  him  third-class  to  New  York  and  to  keep  him  frugally 
there  for  a  month  or  so.  The  thought  of  holding  Winifred 
in  his  arms  again  keyed  him  up  to  an  intense  and  feverish 
expectancy.  He  bought  his  ticket  a  fortnight  before  sailing, 
and  spent  the  final  week  in  packing  his  belongings,  which  he 
intended  depositing  with  friends.  Who  knew?— he  might  be 
under  compulsion  to  remain  in  New  York,  and  cheap  as  the 
room  was,  he  could  not  afford  to  keep  it. 

REAL  KING,  OR  ALTER  EGO 

Gombarov  made  a  discovery.  As  long  as  he  had  worked  by 
day  expressing  himself  on  paper,  he  slept  untroubled;  but 
once  he  stopped  working,  he  was  visited  by  dreams. 

In  that  final  fortnight,  after  finishing  his  book,  he  had 
several  dreams,  and  one  dream  in  particular,  which  was  not 
so  much  a  dream  as  an  extraordinary  symbolic  vision,  seen  at 
night  in  a  state  of  wakefulness.  For  three  nights  preceding  it, 
he  saw  heads  of  children,  chubby  faces  lit  up  in  the  dark  by  a 
354 


LIFE'S  CHESSBOARD:  A  YEAR'S  MOVES 

mysterious  light:  the  faces  of  children  peered  at  him  from 
the  darkness,  and  nothing  else  of  them  was  visible.  On  the 
fourth  night  he  awoke,  his  face  turned  up  toward  the  ceiling. 
He  felt  strangely,  keenly  awake,  his  mind  intensely  clear, 
super-consciously  clear.  He  lay  on  his  back  and  did  not 
move.  The  large,  undraped,  unshuttered  window  at  his  back 
let  in  the  first  faint  light  of  winter  dawn.  Without  turning 
his  head,  he  let  his  eyes  stray  toward  the  distant  door  of  the 
large,  high  room,  which  was  shut  and  locked.  He  saw  a 
strange  thing  before  the  door:  a  tall  male  figure,  at  least  eight 
feet  in  height,  dressed  in  black.  Gombarov,  wide  awake, 
experienced  no  fear,  only  curiosity.  His  mind  analysed  the 
apparition.  He  said  to  himself: 

"That  must  be  an  illusion.  Probably  I  see  it  because  a 
certain  part  of  my  brain  is  in  contact  with  creases  in  the 
pillow,  and  if  I  move  ever  so  little  the  figure  is  sure  to  dis- 
appear. But  I  must  not  move.  I  do  not  want  it  to  disappear. 
I  want  to  see  what  will  happen." 

The  tall  figure  seemed  to  linger  near  the  door  for  a  few 
moments,  then  moved  forward,  toward  Gombarov.  It  was 
some  feet  away,  and  was  slowly  coming  forward.  Gombarov, 
lying  quietly,  now  observed  that  over  its  shoulders  it  wore  a 
voluminous  black  cloak,  and  that  its  large  masculine  head, 
somewhat  bowed,  had  longish  thick  straight  hair.  Though 
he  could  not  see  the  face,  there  was  a  hint  of  a  frown  hi  it,  a 
suggestion  of  meditation. 

"How  like  Hamlet!"  said  Gombarov  to  himself. 

And  still  nearer  the  colossal  figure  approached.  It  was 
now  at  the  foot  of  the  bed.  It  suddenly  turned  up  its  bowed 
head;  a  light  fell  on  its  face.  Gombarov  was  astonished.  It 
was  himself!  Only  a  taller,  an  altogether  finer,  handsomer 
self!  The  face  looked  down  on  him  and  frowned.  Its  eyes 
355 


BABEL 

appeared  to  regard  him  critically.  Gombarov  suddenly  under- 
stood. A  thought — a  phrase  of  Emerson's — that  he  remem- 
bered, shot  through  his  brain: 

"Man  is  but  dwarf  of  himself!" 

"Rise  to  your  full  height,  Gombarov! "  was  what  the  thought 
conveyed  to  him. 

Then,  at  the  very  instant  that  Gombarov  understood,  his 
Alter  Ego  relaxed  its  frown,  seemed  to  understand  that  he  had 
understood,  and  began  to  retreat,  backing,  still  facing  him; 
and  when  the  apparition  had  thus  reached  the  door,  it  van- 
ished, its  black  hair  seeming  to  lose  itself  within  Gombarov's 
broad-brimmed  hat  hanging  on  the  door. 

Gombarov  lay  wide  awake,  overcome  with  wonder  at  what 
he  had  seen.  There  was  ecstasy  in  this  wonder.  What  mys- 
terious powers  had  sent  him  this  revelation  of  his  potential 
self,  seen  with  a  clear  brain  and  wakeful  eyes?  How  was  he 
to  free  his  cramped,  hunch-backed  soul,  cause  it  to  rise  to 
his  vision's  height?  But  he  knew  even  then  that  it  was  to 
be  to  huii  as  a  pillar  of  light  in  the  darkness  of  future  days, 
ever  receding,  ever  urging  him  on. 

And  thus  he  lay  thinking,  until  daylight  began  to  flood  the 
room. 


356 


BOOK  III 
BRAIN-STORM 


CHAPTER  X:     BRAIN-STORM 

"  .  .  .  it  is  a  tale 
Told  by  an  idiot,  full  of  sound 

and  fury, 
Signifying   nothing" 

—MACBETH. 

QUEST  OF  THE  GOLDEN  FLEECE 

THE  huge  Cunarder  clove  a  path  through  the  ponderous 
waters,  and  hope  advanced  above  the  vast  deeps  of  life.  Here 
seemed  to  be  enough  water  to  render  everything  else  insignifi- 
cant, impotent;  enough  water  to  create  as  immense  a  despair 
in  the  heart  of  insignficant  man;  enough  water  to  drown 
an  army  of  men  and  all  their  despair,  their  hope  also,  leaving 
not  so  much  as  a  ripple  to  indicate  their  one-time  existence 
and  all  the  aspirations  and  illusions  of  that  existence.  Yet, 
steadily  and  speedily  and  buoyantly,  the  steel-riveted,  smoke- 
spouting  monster,  larger  than  any  leviathan,  with  erect  prow, 
as  with  sharp  knife,  cut  through  and  ploughed  up  the  hillocks 
of  boundless,  motionful  meadow,  and  left  behind  a  long, 
straight  line  of  white  foam  and,  overhead,  a  trail  of  black 
breath.  The  spray  shot  up  the  sides  of  the  ship  at  a  sharp 
angle  and  struck  the  deck  in  a  curve  of  thin  mist.  The  day 
was  grey,  the  sea  tinged  green.  The  ship  faced  the  wind; 
nevertheless,  Gombarov  stood  near  the  prow,  eyes  fixed  on 
the  west.  There  he  was  nearer,  a  full  seven  hundred  feet 
nearer  than  at  the  stern,  to  the  object  of  his  quest. 

The  ship  was,  indeed,  over  seven  hundred  feet  long,  or  about 
a  seventh  of  a  mile,  and  had  four  funnels;  its  passengers  must 

359 


BABEL 

have  felt  a  certain  pride  when  they  saw  passing  ships  having 
only  one  or  two  funnels.  It  was,  in  its  way,  a  complete  world, 
and  within  this  seventh  of  a  mile,  which  to  distant  ships  must 
have  seemed  no  more  than  a  speck,  the  whole  social  order 
of  our  civilisation,  was  reconstituted  in  a  form  at  once  concen- 
trated and  intense.  There,  below,  deep  in  the  hold,  were  the 
half  naked,  begrimed,  sweaty  stokers,  feeding  the  insatiate, 
flame-tongued  furnaces;  Gombarov  had  seen  a  stoker  carried 
on  deck,  overcome  by  their  hot  breath.  A  little  higher,  also 
in  the  hold,  were  the  poorest  steerage  passengers,  of  the  immi- 
grant class.  These  shared  the  fair  sized  deck  of  the  fairly 
respectable  if  indigent  third-class  passengers.  Gates  barred 
the  way  to  the  second-class  upper  deck,  which  belonged,  for 
the  most  part,  to  the  well-to-do  middle  classes.  Gates  barred 
the  second-class  passengers  from  intruding  on  those  of  the  first- 
class,  who  promenaded  the  highest,  finest  deck  of  all.  There, 
lording  it  over  all,  were  the  world's  successful  men  and  women. 
Captains  of  Industry  and  their  wives  and  young  heiresses, 
ladies  of  quality,  opera  singers  and  actresses  and  first-class 
courtesans,  with  excellent  purses  all.  More  rarely  was  a  first- 
class  Captain  of  Art  to  be  found  in  this  company.  Indeed, 
the  Irish  poet,  Raftery,  was  on  board.  Gombarov  had  seen 
him  ascending  the  gang-board  at  Liverpool,  but  could  not 
communicate  with  him.  Nowhere  more  than  in  a  ship  is 
society  rigidly  divided  into  the  haves  and  the  have-nots. 
Therefore,  Gombarov  had  no  love  of  ocean-liners.  Of  an 
evening,  gaiety  reigned  on  the  upper  decks;  sounds  of  instru- 
mental music  and  of  music  from  operatic  throats  strayed 
below;  one  felt  conscious  of  the  proximity  of  desired,  well- 
dressed  women  dancing  hi  intimate  contact  with  their  part- 
ners; it  was  annoying  and  sad  to  be  shut  off  from  all  this. 
It  was  not  that  he  wanted  them,  this  gaiety  and  desirable 
360 


BRAIN-STORM 

women;  but  he  wanted  the  key  to  all  this  that  he  might  throw 
it  away.  There  was  no  virtue  in  keeping  away  from  things 
because  you  had  to. 

The  third-class  accommodation  was  far  from  crowded. 
There  was  room  for  six  times  the  number.  Gombarov  had  a 
small  cabin  all  to  himself.  He  liked  the  simple  souls  on 
board  who  had  embarked  with  the  hope  of  finding  a  home  in 
a  new  land.  He  was  attracted  to  the  family  groups,  with 
their  sturdy  peasant  types,  often  in  native  dress  (which  they 
would  soon  be  deprived  of),  huddled  together  in  the  evening 
on  deck,  laughing  and  chattering  to  hide  their  hope  and  con- 
cern, the  younger  members  tripping  to  a  folk  tune,  suddenly 
struck  up  by  a  fiddle  and  accordion.  It  was  amusing  to  watch 
the  girls  being  deftly  swung  round  like  tops,  their  skirts 
blowing  out  like  bells,  their  lusty  outcries  harmoniously  min- 
gling with  the  hand-clapping  and  foot-stamping  of  young 
men,  lost  and  merged  at  last  in  the  applause  of  the  dense 
circle  of  onlookers.  It  was  old-world  gaiety,  and  sadly  Gom- 
barov reflected  that  all  this  would  be  swallowed  up  and  lost 
in  new  world  ways.  And  American  tunes,  rag  and  incipient 
jazz,  were  beginning  to  pervade  and  conquer  Europe. 

The  huge  liner  continued  to  cleave  her  way  through  the 
ponderous  waters,  and  hope  to  advance  above  the  vast  deeps 
of  life.  What  better  symbol  of  hope  was  there  than  a  ship 
steadfastly  moving  across  that  vast  expanse  of  uncertain, 
murderous  waters?  What  better  symbol  of  the  immensity 
of  human  solitude  and  despair  than  that  same  sea,  endless 
and  boundless,  full  of  mysterious,  invisible  life,  eternally 
surging,  eternally,  restlessly  moving,  mirroring  quiet  blue  skies, 
or  tossing  with  quenchless  fury?  What  but  a  habitation  of 
hope,  a  world,  a  universe  of  human  aspiration,  a  battle  and  a 
challenge  to  that  immense  despair,  to  the  treacherous  sea,  to 

361 


BABEL 

death  itself,  was  Noah's  Ark,  floating,  drifting  above  the  deluge, 
seeking  quiet,  a  refuge  from  that  despair,  an  isle  of  content- 
ment? What  was  the  Argo,  Jason's  quest  of  the  Golden 
Fleece,  but  the  human  seeking  of  happiness,  in  the  same  sea 
of  eternal  despair — had  Jason  found  it?  Yes,  but — there  was 
a  string  to  it,  and  at  the  end  of  the  string  Medea  I 

Then  Santa  Maria,  Christopher  Columbus's  Ark  or  Argo, 
a  ship  of  hope,  if  ever  there  was  one,  and  that  hope  all 
centred  in  the  heart  of  one  man,  fighting  the  storms  of  sea 
and  the  mutinies  of  incredulous  men,  overcoming  both.  Nor 
was  there  a  sea  of  disparity  between  the  historic  Italian 
and  the  fictitious  but  none  the  less  real  Nantucketer,  Captain 
Ahab,  of  the  ship  Pequod,  seeking  the  elusive  Moby  Dick,  the 
White  Whale,  which,  like  a  white  light,  lured  him  on,  him  and 
his  crew,  and  wrecked  him,  once  he  had  caught  up  with  his 
hope,  his  white  light.  Woe  to  him,  then,  who  overtakes  his 
hope,  catches  up  with  the  White  Whale,  the  White  Light,  or 
the  White  Girl,  the  eternal  aspiration  of  one's  heart!  Yet 
who  is  immune  from  the  emotion  that  awakens  in  the  human 
heart  at  the  time-old  cry  of  "Land!  Land!  Land!"  What,  if 
like  Columbus,  we  sail  to  find  the  East  Indies,  and  after  a 
woful  journey,  inadvertently  discover  the  Indies  of  the  West? 

Gombarov,  facing  the  wind,  stood  near  the  ship's  prow  and 
continued  to  look  westward  through  the  deepening  twilight. 
The  sky  was  overcast,  but  there  was  a  strip  of  clear  white 
light  on  the  horizon,  between  the  black  sea  line  and  the  black 
cloud,  and  into  this  curtain  of  black  cloud  mystic  shafts  of 
light  penetrated  divergently  upward  like  the  spokes  of  a  fan, 
and  were  interlaced  with  it  in  varying  degrees  of  intensity, 
like  white  ribbons  running  through  the  slits  of  a  diaphanous 
grey-black  material  of  an  intense  softness.  That  white  strip 
of  light  was  of  enticing  loveliness,  translucent  and  radiant, 

362 


BRAIN-STORM 

and,  the  cloud  descending  on  either  side,  it  slowly  assumed 
the  rounded  shape  of  a  woman's  white  shoulders,  peeping 
from  under  a  grey-purple  coverlet,  the  heaving  sea.  And  this 
light  shone,  leading  him  on. 

And  suddenly,  directly  ahead  hi  the  distance,  a  four-masted 
schooner  emerged  from  the  shadows  of  the  cloud,  and  hove 
in  sight,  in  full  sail,  crossing  the  line  of  that  strip  of  light, 
a  beautiful  winged  silhouette  as  of  some  dark  phantom  ship, 
depending  for  flight  on  its  own  wings  and  God's  wind.  Like 
a  bird  on  the  crest  of  a  wave,  it  rocked  gently,  dipping  now 
its  head,  now  its  tail,  in  the  radiance  of  the  dying  light. 

Wingless,  the  liner  advanced  speedily  and  unswervingly, 
a  symbol  of  a  new  conquering  world.  What  a  contrast  was 
here!  Wings  were  needless,  winds  also.  No  favours  from 
God!  Man  had  installed  an  iron  stomach  in  the  ship,  and 
he  fed  that  stomach  with  fuel,  and  the  ship  flew  along  on 
its  belly,  like  the  wingless  serpent  of  the  Garden  of  Eden 
which  had  defied  God.  Finite  and  dispossessed,  man  had, 
nevertheless,  made  use  of  his  having  tasted  of  the  fruit  of 
the  tree  of  knowledge  to  become  a  god  unto  himself!  The 
soul  of  man  was  in  the  belly  of  that  monster  ship,  pushing 
it  on,  other  ships  also,  to  goals  innumerable.  The  ship's  wings 
were  in  its  stomach.  Somewhere  a  thousand  men  were  digging 
into  the  deep  insides  of  the  earth  for  food  wherewith  to  feed 
this  insatiate  stomach.  Her  four  funnels  were  belching  forth 
excrement  into  the  pure  air,  challenging  heaven. 

An  army  marched  on  its  stomach,  said  Napoleon;  a  ship, 
too,  nowadays,  glided  swiftly  on  its  belly.  And  love? — how 
was  love  to  reach  its  goal?  He  would  have  that  to  think  of 
when  he  reached  New  York.  Eager  and  impatient  as  he  was, 
he  knew  that  certain  practical  problems  would  have  to  be 
faced,  could  not  long  be  deferred. 

363 


BABEL 

That  morning,  he  reflected,  a  Swede,  young  and  robust, 
six  feet  two  in  height,  had  hanged  himself  in  his  cabin,  while 
breakfast  was  being  served.  Yet  he,  too,  must  have  hoped; 
otherwise  he  would  not  have  booked  passage  on  the  ship.  It 
was  possible,  of  course,  that  he  had  been  running  to  not  so 
much  as  from  a  place.  He  might  have  hanged  himself  on  land, 
without  paying  a  fare.  Poor  man!  Not  that  whole  immense 
ship  could  save  the  hope  he  had  had  and  lost.  His  White 
Whale,  White  Light  or  White  Girl  he  must  have  left  behind! 

But  the  thought  of  seeing  Winifred  again  banished  every 
other  thought,  and  Gombarov  gave  himself  up  to  it  as  he 
watched  the  white  light  on  the  horizon  narrowing  and  narrow- 
ing, until  it  disappeared  and  there  was  but  a  wall  of  darkness 
in  front  of  him.  He  felt  cold,  and  he  walked  along  the  deck 
until  he  found  a  sheltered  corner.  Here  his  huddled  figure 
rested,  while  inside  of  him  a  white  light  burned,  and  in  this 
light  was  the  face  he  loved. 

END  OF  THE  QUEST 

The  ship  slowly  crept  up  to  New  York's  broad  waterway, 
in  the  winter  twilight,  past  innumerable  tall  towers,  generously 
besprinkled  with  light,  glimmering  in  the  evening  mist.  It  was 
as  if  man  had  said:  "No  favours  from  God!  I'll  have  a  Milky 
Way  of  my  own!"  And  he  poured  out  this  bounty  of  glim- 
mers from  his  electro-mechanical  cornucopia.  There  was  this 
immense  glimmering  wall  stretching  along  the  banks  of  the 
stream,  where  not  so  long  ago  the  Red  Indian  glided  swiftly 
in  his  canoe,  while  his  squaw  on  shore  attended  to  the  papoose. 
God's  stars  were  obscured,  man's  stars  shone  brilliantly.  It 
was  as  if  man  had  unscrewed  the  firmament  above,  pressed 
it  flat,  and  stood  it  up  on  end.  There  was  writing  on  this 
wall,  too — letters  of  light.  Man  was  taking  no  chances.  If 
364 


BRAIN-STORM 

there  was  to  be  handwriting  on  his  wall,  he'd  not  wait  for 
God's  hand  to  put  it  there,  especially  as  his  fellows  were  willing 
to  take  the  space — at  so  much  per  square  inchl     Gombarov 
read  some  of  the  signs: 
"Lokum's  Balsam  is  Best  for  Corns!" 
"Curvo  Corsets  Preserve  the  Shape!" 
"Drink  Bolo-Moko!     You  Won't  Like  It  At  First!" 
"Jupp's  Whiskey  Makes  the  World  Go  Round!" 
Later,  when  he  passed  a  Salvation  Army  place  and  read 
the  electric  sign  over  the  door:     "Come  in,  and  get  nearer 
to  God!"  he  realised  that  God  had  an  equal  chance  with 
anyone  else,  provided  His  representatives  paid  for  the  space, 
which  was  only  fair. 

For  the  time  being,  standing  on  deck  there,  he  was  not  so 
near  as  to  note  all  the  details  of  this  extraordinary  illumina- 
tion; but  there  was  the  beauty  of  this  immense  jagged  wall 
and  its  towers,  which  hi  that  twilight  mist  were  as  the  battle- 
ments of  some  fabulous  castle,  erected  and  inhabited,  surely, 
by  a  race  of  mythical  giants.  The  wonder  of  it  was  greater 
when  he  reflected  that  these  towers  had  been  planned  and 
built  by  a  race  relatively  Lilliputian,  "by  men  no  larger 
than  I!" 

"There  is  a  tower  hi  the  soul  of  man,"  he  mused,  "and  this 
tower  often  becomes  a  reality,  whether  it  be  in  the  form  of 
a  pagoda,  a  pyramid,  a  skyscraper,  that  beautiful  bridge  weVe 
just  passed,  or  a  play  by  Shakespeare.  That  tower  topples 
in  the  end,  surely;  always  to  be  rebuilt  in  a  new  form.  What 
was  the  original  Babel?"  he  suddenly  asked  himself.  "Not  a 
tower,  literally,  but  a  condition,  a  state  of  mind,  a  state  of 
civilisation  .  .  .  perhaps,  a  finished  civilisation,  an  Empire, 
ready  to  topple  ...  like  a  child's  house  of  blocks,  when  it's 
finished,  and  the  child  is  weary  of  it.  All  things  and  all 
365 


BABEL 

aspirations  seem  to  come  to  this  toppling  point,  to  perish 
when  our  brain  has  become  filled  with  human  knowledge  and 
we  have  become  old  men  and  realised  the  folly  of  being  gods 
without  eternity.  Time  alone  is  the  best  judge  ...  so  hav- 
ing no  eternity,  we  make  our  instants  eternal.  Just  as  at 
this  instant,  I  appear  to  be  living  for  one  thing,  to  see 
Winifred.  .  .  ." 

And  at  the  thought  of  her  name,  everything  else  became 
obliterated,  his  other  thoughts  as  well  as  these  immense 
towers,  and  he  burned  with  the  ecstasy  of  his  hope,  with  the 
sense  of  the  nearness  of  the  object  of  his  quest. 

"Third-class  citizens  only!"  shouted  a  uniformed  official, 
walking  along  the  deck. 

American  citizens  were  to  be  allowed  to  land  at  once.  The 
immigrants  would  be  kept  over  night,  to  be  subjected  next  day 
to  a  severe  scrutiny  from  officials  on  Ellis  Island.  They  were 
in  a  state  of  suppressed  excitement.  They  were  so  near  the 
goal  of  their  hopes,  yet  tomorrow — who  knew?  The  rejected 
ones  would  have  to  travel  the  whole  distance  back,  some  of 
them  four  thousand  miles  or  more.  Hard  luck!  An  increased 
knowledge  of  the  earth  did  not  make  for  an  increased  earth 
and  an  increase  in  the  fruits  thereof.  They  were  seeking  but 
food  and  opportunity.  The  earth  was  overcrowded.  A  secret 
terror  was  in  the  hearts  of  these  men  and  women  as  they 
waited  for  the  morrow.  Suppose  even  one  of  a  large  family 
were  rejected,  what  were  they  to  do?  To  enter  the  United 
States,  a  country  of  three  million  square  miles,  you  had  to 
walk  through  a  series  of  narrow  stiles,  just  wide  enough  to 
allow  a  single  man,  woman  or  child  to  pass  at  a  time.  They 
looked  enviously  to  the  small  group  that  responded  to  the  cry: 

"Third-class  citizens  only!" 

But  the  third-class  citizens  growled: 
366 


BRAIN-STORM 

"We  may  be  third-class  passengers,  but  we  are  not  third- 
class  citizens!" 

All  because  the  official  had  left  a  comma  out!  But  the 
immigrants  would  have  been  only  too  glad  to  be  admitted  as 
"third-class  citizens." 

Gombarov,  lugging  his  leather  bag,  the  same  he  had  carried 
from  Victoria  Station  to  Russell  Square,  was  soon  travelling 
in  a  trolley  towards  Washington  Square,  where  the  Gwynnes 
had  a  studio  apartment. 

He  found  their  names  on  the  door  among  other  names,  and 
in  answer  to  his  ring  of  their  bell,  the  door  gave  a  slight  click 
and  opened  as  of  itself.  He  ascended  one  flight  of  stairs,  and 
once  on  the  landing,  heard  a  familiar,  timid  voice  from  above: 

"Is  that  you,  John?" 

Another  moment,  and  they  were  hi  each  other's  arms. 

"Is  it  really  you?"  she  said. 

"Pinch  me,  and  see!" 

"I  had  better  pinch  myself  to  see  that  I'm  alive  and  awake. 
I  can't  believe  it.  How  I  have  wanted  you!" 

She  hid  her  head  hi  his  coat  and  was  shy,  as  if  she  had 
not  known  a  man's  kisses  before. 

"Ill  never  let  you  out  of  my  sight  again!"  she  whispered. 

Gombarov  was  happy. 

Her  mother  emerged  from  the  next  room,  effusive  in  greet- 
ing, and  he  felt  as  if  he  had  come  home  after  long  wandering. 
It  was  a  delicious  feeling  for  one  who  had  had  a  wretched 
childhood  and  youth.  The  three  of  them  talked,  then  went 
out  to  dinner  together,  Winifred's  hand  in  her  lover's. 

It  was  strange  to  be  in  New  York  after  London.    London 

;  sprawled,  New  York  stood  up.    London  rumbled,  New  York 

screeched.    London  had  a  purring  softness,  a  roundness  of 

feature  under  a  veil;  New  York's  aural  radiance  was  clear 

367 


BABEL 

and  hard,  and  in  it  her  features  were  seen  to  be  hard  and 
angular  and  decisive,  like  a  Red  Indian's.  No  windings  of 
streets  to  lure  a  stranger  round  a  curve.  Skies  were  abolished. 
One  walked  in  rectilinear  ravines  between  erect  perpendicular 
cliffs  which  resembled  real  cliffs  only  in  the  degree  that  pyra- 
mids resemble  mountains.  It  was  not  to  be  denied  that  there 
was  a  fierce,  austere  beauty  here,  cruel  if  you  like,  but  cruel 
only  as  youth  is  cruel. 

Walking  arm  in  arm,  they  turned  a  sharp  corner  and  were 
in  Broadway,  the  Great  White  Way,  the  Milky  Way  of  a 
man-created     universe.    Lights,     lights,     lights!     Twinkling, 
glimmering,  dancing,  antic-performing  lights.    An  animated 
jovial  figure,  constructed  out  of  lights,  pouring  himself  a  glass 
of  Jupp's  Whiskey  and  saying,  "Gee,  it's  good!"  grinning  out 
of  his  electric  eyes.    A  lithe  electric  cat  jumping  on  to  a 
sewing  machine  and  getting  entangled  in  a  mass  of  thread, 
only  to  jump  down  again  in  a  desperate  effort  to  extricate 
itself.     Impossible!     The  thread  was  too  strong.     "Buy  no 
other!"    An  electric  young  lady,  in  her  electric  boudoir,  in 
deshabille,  brushing  her  electric  teeth  with  an  electric  tooth- 
brush, dipped  in  Delictum  Tooth  Paste,  which  "Assures  a 
Sweet  Breath! "    An  electric  ballet  girl  gyrating  on  her  electric 
legs,  proclaiming  Manhattan  Foxtrot  Hall  to  be  "the  place 
to   dance   in."    Myriads   of   lights,    twinkling,    glimmering, 
revolving,  quivering,  performing  "stunts"  in  plenty.    Vulgar 
some  of  them,  yet  very  wonderful. 
"Perfectly  diabolic,  don't  you  think?"  asked  Winifred. 
He  laughed  and  answered  enigmatically: 
"What  would  be  the  glory  of  God  without  Satan?" 
"But  Satan  has  it  all  his  own  way  here,  let  me  assure  you. 
If  you  had  been  here  as  long  as  we,  you'd  think  so  too!" 
"I  don't  deny  it.    Only  sometimes  it  is  hard  to  tell  one 
368 


BRAIN-STORM 

from  the  other.  There  is  so  much  bad  in  what  is  called  good, 
and  so  much  good  in  what  is  called  bad." 

"Mother,  he  hasn't  changed  at  all.  He  is  the  same  old 
philosopher!"  Winifred  added:  "But  I  don't  want  him  to 
change." 

"I've  changed  more  than  you  know,"  he  replied.  "But  I 
haven't  changed  with  regard  to  you." 

She  tenderly  pressed  his  arm. 

Seated  in  an  Italian  restaurant,  they  exchanged  experi- 
ences, talked  over  the  things  that  had  happened  since  their 
last  meeting. 

They  decided  to  surprise  the  Roneys  in  their  flat,  five 
minutes'  distance  by  the  subway.  Roney,  a  good  fellow,  was 
one  of  Gombarov's  oldest  friends.  He  had  been  a  student  at 
the  Art  School,  and  in  his  work  his  leanings  were  half  towards 
Phil  May,  half  towards  Forain.  At  the  time  they  knew  each 
other  in  Philadelphia,  the  conservative  editors  catering  for 
a  conservative  public  considered  his  drawings  outrageously 
revolutionary.  Gombarov  had  fought  with  the  editors  of  the 
New  World  to  get  Roney's  drawings  in,  and  now  the  same 
Roney  was  a  great  success  and  three  big  New  York  dailies 
had  contested  for  his  services  as  cartoonist.  The  world  did 
move! 

The  Roneys  were,  indeed,  surprised  to  see  Gombarov,  of 
whose  coming  they  had  no  inkling,  and  Roney  at  once  sug- 
gested taking  them  all  to  a  late  supper  and  cocktails  in  the 
combined  dance  and  dining  hall  of  a  famous  hotel.  The  five 
of  them  crowded  into  a  taxi,  and  Roney  directed  the  driver 
to  drive  first  to  a  certain  point  in  Broadway  just  beyond 
Forty-second  Street. 

"Look!"  said  Roney,  pointing  upward,  as  the  taxi  stopped. 

Gombarov  looked  out  of  the  taxi  window,  and  read  the 

369 


BABEL 

large  sprawling  electric  letters:  "See  Roney's  Cartoon  in 
Today's  Chronicler!" 

"Well,  you  are  getting  on,  Roney!  What  do  you  draw 
now?" 

"A  hundred  and  fifty  simoleons  per  week.  But  New  York 
takes  it  all." 

Gombarov  felt  insignificant,  and  not  a  little  alarmed.  His 
entire  borrowed  fortune  did  not  amount  to  a  hundred  dollars. 
How  was  he  to  exist,  give  Winifred  a  good  time,  go  to  Phila- 
delphia to  see  his  family,  and  get  back  to  London?  The 
lightness  of  his  purse  weighed  him  down.  But  he  thought: 
he  had  made  a  great  sacrifice  in  coming,  and  Winifred  must 
love  him  for  it! 

JAZZ  DRINKS,  JAZZ  MUSIC,  JAZZ  DANCING  I 

He  revived  from  his  temporary  depression  under  the  influ- 
ence of  cocktails,  the  music  of  the  jazz  band  and  the  sight  of 
fox-trotting  couples. 

He  marvelled  at  the  antics  of  the  band.  There,  on  a  small 
platform,  were  three  negroes,  in  dazzlingly  white  shirts  and 
white  collars,  making  enough  noise  for  ten.  What  extraordi- 
nary instruments!  An  out-of-tune  piano,  a  banjo  and  a  drum 
and  numerous  subsidiary  instruments,  such  as  a  triangle,  a 
hanging  bottle,  a  rattle,  a  battered  sauce-pan,  a  string  of 
bells,  a  cymbal,  a  flute  so  arranged  over  the  drum  that  the 
drummer  could  put  his  mouth  on  it  without  ceasing  to  func- 
tion with  his  hands;  and  two  or  three  other  strange  instruments 
newly  invented;  and  the  collection  was  manipulated  by  this 
active  black  trio,  who  often  reinforced  the  instrumental  noises 
with  their  own  voices,  while  their  black  faces,  their  big-lipped 
red  mouths  arranged  into  quarter-moons,  grinned.  What  was 
more  extraordinary,  the  players  managed  to  extricate  a  tune, 

370 


BRAIN-STORM 

even  a  distinct  tune,  from  this  multiplicity  of  cacophonous 
instruments,  out  of  this  chaos  of  rasping,  jangling  noises; 
indeed,  they  played  the  hidden  melody  of  primordial  chaos,  a 
melody  clear  enough  for  dancers  to  dance  to  it. 

That  was  strange:  the  spectacle  of  civilised  society,  well- 
groomed  men  and  exquisite,  refmed-ankled,  delicately  turned 
women,  responding  to  the  most  primitive  essences  hi  the  arts: 
tribal  music  and  steps  and  movements  richly  symbolic  of  sex. 
Life,  nature  itself,  long  repressed,  was  breaking  through  the 
puritan  shell,  and  there  was  no  puritan  law  that  could  pre- 
vent it.  Books  were  censored:  there  was  no  censoring  music! 
And  odd  it  was,  that  the  Congo  should  be  conquering  America, 
and  that  in  her  turn,  America  should  be  conquering  Europe. 
This  new  music  would  soon  be  heard  from  San  Francisco  to 
Moscow. 

He  looked  on  wistfully,  for  he  could  not  dance,  as  he  saw 
his  Winifred  borne  across  the  floor  in  the  embrace  of  Roney, 
their  tall  slender  bodies  and  their  legs  moving  sensually  and 
rhythmically  against  each  other's,  with  an  intimacy  like  that 
of  barbaric  lovers.  At  the  neighbouring  table  he  saw  a  pretty 
girl  sitting  alone,  her  thin,  frail  garments  outlining  her  flowing 
form,  and  wistfully  he  looked  at  her  with  the  eyes  of  one  who 
wished  to  dance,  but  could  not.  He  wanted  to  feel  her  limbs 
moving  against  his  as  Winifred's  were  against  Roney 's,  and 
with  the  second  cocktail,  the  jazz  among  drinks,  his  desire 
grew.  Roney  soon  returned,  and  Winifred  was  claimed  by  a 
stranger:  her  hair  brushed  the  stranger's  face,  her  bosom  lay 
against  the  stranger's,  and  her  limbs  pressed  and  moved 
against  the  stranger's.  She  appeared  to  be  enjoying  herself: 
Gombarov  felt  sad.  She  returned,  pressed  his  hand,  his 
spirits  revived. 

It  was  not  until  after  one  o'clock  that  they  returned  to 


BABEL 

the  apartment.  Mrs.  Gwynne  went  into  the  kitchen  to  prepare 
tea,  while  the  lovers  exchanged  tendernesses.  In  his  happiness 
he  forgot  everything. 

The  Gwynnes  had  no  accommodation  for  him,  and  so  about 
two  o'clock,  taking  a  few  articles  with  him,  he  set  out  to  find  a 
hotel.  The  night  was  cold,  and  he  took  the  first  place  he 
could  find.  He  felt  that  the  charge  of  one  dollar  and  a  half 
was  more  than  he  could  afford.  Tomorrow  he  would  look  for 
cheaper  lodgings. 

"After  all,"  he  reflected,  as  he  curled  up  under  the  sheets, 
"it  has  been  a  miracle,  in  my  circumstances,  to  have  come  at 
all  this  three  thousand  miles.  Audacity  should  bring  luck! 
Oh,  God,  help  me!  And  make  Winifred  keep  on  loving  me!" 

He  prayed  like  a  credulous  child  to  suppress  his  fears,  and 
tired  after  his  big  day  was  soon  asleep. 

He  had  breakfast  with  the  Gwynnes.  It  was  not  until  the 
fourth  day  that  he  found  a  suitable  lodging  in  Greenwich 
Village  in  a  house  that  sheltered  artists  and  students.  He 
secured  a  small  room,  which  was  equipped  with  neither  a 
grate  nor  a  radiator.  It  was  only  fit  for  sleeping  in.  As  it 
was,  he  spent  the  rest  of  his  time  with  Winifred  or  in  seeing 
editors.  He  wanted  to  do  a  weekly  art  and  literary  letter  from 
London.  His  London  address  on  his  visiting  card  admitted 
him  to  the  editors  of  newspapers  and  periodicals.  They  were 
all  polite  and  willing  to  consider  articles  sent  in  the  usual 
manner,  but  did  not  want  to  bind  themselves  to  any  regular 
feature.  He  was  not  a  facile  writer,  and  this  did  not  appeal 
to  him.  He  wanted  to  be  forced  to  turn  out  an  article  by  a 
given  date;  otherwise  his  interest  might  flag.  He  succeeded 
hi  interesting  the  editor  of  Roney's  paper,  to  whom  at  lunch 
he  proposed  writing  a  weekly  letter  dealing  with  the  newer 
aspects  of  art  and  literature.  The  idea  appealed  to  the  editor, 

372 


BRAIN-STORM 

who,  on  consulting,  however,  the  editor  of  the  Art  and  Litera- 
ture Section,  found  him  hotly  opposed  to  "advertising  madmen 
and  notoriety  seekers."  He  was  an  old  man,  well  known  in 
the  art  world  as  a  deep-dyed  puritan  and  conservative. 

Gombarov  spent  many  days  in  the  futile  quest  of  editors. 
The  weather  was  intensely  cold,  and  if  he  stopped  hi  some  light 
lunch  place  for  a  coffee  and  to  get  rest  and  warmth,  the  waiters 
and  proprietor  would  look  askance  at  him  if  he  continued 
sitting  too  long.  He  was  occupying  valuable  space.  Their 
place  was  kept  to  sell  food  and  drink  and  not  to  have  loafers 
hanging  about.  It  was  not  as  in  England  or  on  the  Continent, 
where  if  you  paid  for  a  coffee  you  took  a  lease  on  a  chair  for 
as  long  as  you  liked.  And  he  would  resume  his  idle  quest  of 
editors.  It  was  discouraging.  There  was  something  in  the 
phrase  of  an  American  writer:  "A  job  is,  but  Art  ain'tl" 
Surely.  There  was  the  hie vi table  reaction  in  the  evening,  when 
he  called  on  Winifred,  without  a  crumb  of  good  news,  and 
tacitly  looked  for  consoling  caresses. 

The  first  week  passed  happily,  even  ecstatically.  While 
on  the  steamer  he  had  made  the  resolution  that  if,  by  a 
tenacious  effort,  he  could  secure  something  tangible  in  the 
nature  of  a  regular  correspondence  from  London,  he  would 
ask  her  to  marry  him  there  and  then.  The  three  of  them 
could  always  manage  to  keep  the  wolf  from  the  door,  while  he 
worked  to  improve  his  condition.  What  was  the  good  of  wait- 
ing until  you  grew  too  old  to  enjoy  the  best  of  life  and  love? 
He  could  better  concentrate  on  his  work  if  he  did  not  have 
this  hanging  uncertainty  of  Winifred  to  trouble  him;  this 
uncertainty  would  continue  as  long  as  their  love  should  remain 
unconsummated.  This  consummation  alone  could  free  him, 
release  his  energies  for  the  coping  with  the  network  of  prob- 
lems which  beset  the  modern  Occidental  man.  He  needed,  first 

373 


BABEL 

of  all,  this  fulfillment  of  himself  in  a  woman,  to  make  his  fulfill- 
ment in  other  things  possible,  and  life  worth  while.  He  wished 
she  could  see  this.  He  had  thought  on  the  steamer  that  his 
own  audacious  move  would  provoke  her  into  making  a  counter 
move;  that  of  her  own  will  and  impulse  she  would  suggest  such 
a  course,  the  only  course,  even  if  he  should  fail  to  secure  an 
immediate  profitable  living.  Was  not  love  love,  knowing 
neither  shame  nor  barriers?  He  had  need  of  such  encourage- 
ment, even  if  he  failed  to  take  advantage  of  it:  he  simply 
could  not  understand  a  love  which  failed  in  misfortune,  which 
did  not  offer  all  unconditionally.  Love  was  a  full  measure, 
or  it  was  nothing! 

After  a  long  day's  trudging  of  the  cold,  wet  streets  and  of 
interviewing  useless  editors,  he  would  call  in  the  evening  ready 
to  cheer  up  at  the  sight  of  her,  only  to  find  her  depressed. 
He  was  sensitively  aware  that  if  he  could  have  but  come  in, 
bringing  news  of  luck,  the  whole  complexion  of  things  would 
have  changed,  but  inwardly,  deep  within  him,  he  was  discon- 
certed at  his  discovery.  Poor  is  the  love  that  waits  upon  luck! 
He  waited  for  but  a  single  cheering,  consoling  word.  It  would 
have  filled  him  with  new  courage.  But  she  would  not  say  it. 
Perhaps  she  could  not.  Still,  she  might  try.  He  had  come 
three  thousand  miles  for  her,  because  she  clamoured  for  him. 
She  might  try  to  remember  that. 

Of  course,  there  were  also  cheerful  evenings.  He  could  not 
afford  to  ask  her  to  the  theatre.  But  they  called  on  friends, 
and  friends  called  on  them. 

NEW  LAMPS   FOR  OLD! 

One  evening  they  visited  Mrs.  Van  Dingen's  salon,  where 
they  amusedly  watched  poor  artists  greedily  helping  themselves 
to  legs  of  chicken,  which  they  held  up  with  their  fingers  and 

374 


BRAIN-STORM 

gnawed  from  the  bone,  as,  standing  in  small  groups,  they 
discussed  "patterns,"  "life-urges"  and  "dynamics"  between 
mouthfuls.  It  was  the  same  as  in  London,  except  that  the  food 
here  was  better  and  the  manners  worse.  Goodness  knew,  the 
poor  devils  needed  the  food,  especially  as  the  opportunity  to 
receive  it  gratis  came  but  once  a  week. 

Gombarov  was  introduced  to  the  hostess,  a  large  amiable 
woman,  who  wrote  a  kind  of  jazz  poetry,  full  of  thumping 
nouns  and  no  verbs.  "I  am  so  fond  of  the  Russians!"  she 
said — he  had  heard  that  from  a  London  hostess  before — and 
straightway  passed  on  to  speak  to  an  Irishman.  "Why  do  I 
feel  out  of  place  everywhere,  a  perfect  Ishmael,  and  especially 
here,  in  New  York?"  Gombarov  asked  himself.  Every  nation- 
ality and  race  was  represented  here,  and  English  was  spoken 
in  a  variety  of  exotic  accents  and  intonations.  The  feature 
of  the  evening  was  the  reading  of  a  poem  by  a  female  disciple 
of  an  American  woman  poet  residing  in  Budapest.  The  poem 
was  called  "Fanciful  Frying-pans,"  and  ran  as  follows: 

Crumbs  screwed  on  narrow  shoulders, 

Crumbs  full  of  maggots, 

Crumbs  falling  apart, 

Ripe  Camembert  is  a  brother, 

Lid  off,  no  hat,  a  pleasant  surprise,  life  teems. 

Medlar  apples  too  case  in  point 

Sponge  absorbing  life,  sponge  squeezed  out, 

Joy  of  ooze,  joy  of  squeeze,  joy  of  doubt 

Suggesting  universes 

In  fulfillment. 

Crumbs  crumble. 

Narrow  shoulders  fall  in, 

Life  goes  on. 

Maggots,  fierce,  eternal, 

At  end  of  tether 

Infect  the  dead. 

375 


BABEL 

A  sponge  increasing, 
Trousers  filled  out, 
A  balloon  in  the  mist, 
An  unhappy  life-preserver, 
A  thing  throttling, 
Better  off- 
Better  on  if  you  can  save  it  .  .  . 
A  slant,  a  zig-zag,  a  spiral. 
A  plunge  through  space, 
A  pin-point  seeking  salvation, 
A  joy  swimming, 
A  minnow,  a  whale, 
Any  minnow,  any  whale, 
A  reverberating  laughter, 
The  cry  of  a  woman  in  labour 
Searching  for  an  island.  .  .  . 

And  so  on,  and  so  on.  It  took  a  full  fifteen  minutes  to  read 
the  whole  poem.  At  the  end  there  was  applause.  Someone 
behind  Gombarov  leaned  over  his  shoulder  and  asked  him: 

"What  do  you  think  of  it?" 

Gombarov  recognised  him  as  a  young  painter  he  had  met 
a  few  days  before.  He  replied: 

"I  hardly  know  what  to  say.  She  seems  to  hint  at  dis- 
integration of  society." 

"There's  something  in  it,"  said  the  painter.  "It  is  an 
Expressionist  poem.  She  is  trying  to  do  in  words  what  we 
painters  are  doing  in  paint,  to  eliminate  perspective,  false  senti- 
ment and  trivialities.  Some  think  she  is  too  conservative,  leans 
too  much  to  the  right.  Anyhow,  she  is  doing  something  to 
destroy  old  forms  and  create  new  ones,  which  is  all  to  the 
good!" 

After  that  the  company  rose,  and  there  was  more  gnawing 
of  chicken  bones.  Gombarov  talked  with  the  poetess  and 
found  her  extremely  sane  in  conversation.  Indeed,  he  found 

376 


BRAIN-STORM 

all  modern  artists  quite  reasonable  in  their  theories,  which 
they  usually  expressed  with  great  clarity.  It  was  only  their 
practice  that  he  sometimes  failed  to  grasp. 

They  left  at  one  o'clock.  It  was  bitterly  cold,  so  that  he 
felt  as  if  he  hadn't  a  stitch  of  clothing  on  him,  and  Winifred 
swore  because  they  could  not  afford  a  taxi. 

Back  in  his  lodgings,  he  felt  cold,  wretched  and  alone.  The 
evening  at  Mrs.  Van  Dingen's  left  an  ineffable  impression  of 
chaos  and  dissolution.  Such  was  the  effect  these  groups  of 
ultra-moderns  nearly  always  exercised  on  him.  Yet  he  had 
made  such  an  effort  to  be  modern,  even  ultra-modern. 

"I  wonder,"  he  asked  himself,  not  for  the  first  time,  "whether 
I  am  old-fashioned?  But  that  cannot  be,  for  I  detest  the  old 
and  the  old-fashioned  as  much  as  they!  They  would  ridicule 
my  love  affair  if  they  knew  of  itl  What,  then,  is  wrong  with 
me  that  I  can  find  a  place  neither  with  the  old  nor  the  new?" 
One  thing  was  certain:  the  impulse  of  revolt  was  working  in 
them  all  against  the  world  and  its  decadent  institutions,  against 
the  whole  meaninglessness  of  life.  Yet  was  not  this  revolt, 
this  intense  desire  to  return  to  the  primitive,  in  itself  an  indi- 
cation of  the  decadence  of  the  world?  If  that  was  true  of  the 
artists,  always  the  pulse-feelers  of  any  age,  was  it  not  also 
true  that  a  phenomenon  such  as  modem  music  and  dancing 
exhibited  a  similar  temper  among  the  people? 

RIFT  WITHIN  THE  LUTE 

Next  evening  Gombarov  arrived  at  the  Gwynnes'  in  a  cheer- 
ful mood.  He  had  disposed  of  three  chapters  from  his  book 
for  serial  publication  to  a  very  "high-brow"  magazine,  which, 
unfortunately,  like  all  periodicals  of  that  class,  did  not  pay 
well.  Still,  it  looked  like  a  turn  of  luck,  and  he  felt  pleased 
with  himself.  Winifred,  however,  showed  only  a  slight  degree 
377 


BABEL 

of  pleasure.  She  belonged  to  a  more  realistic  world,.  Why, 
thirty  dollars,  the  sum  he  would  receive  for  those  articles, 
would  keep  the  wolf  from  a  New  York  door  for  just  one  week, 
provided  there  were  only  one  person  behind  that  door.  If 
she  were  only  a  little  more  encouraging  1 

Even  during  that  second  week  there  were  passionate  inter- 
vals, when  she  clung  to  him  tenderly  and  craved  a  mutual 
nakedness  and  fulfillment.  He  wanted  her,  yet  had  had 
enough  of  snatching  at  life.  He  did  not  want  to  take  what 
was  his  own  like  a  sneak-thief  during  her  mother's  brief 
absences.  He  wanted  the  peace  of  a  blue  chamber,  inviolate 
against  intrusion,  the  leisured  delights  of  a  king  in  his  palace, 
be  that  palace  no  more  than  a  room  several  feet  square.  He 
was  afraid  to  hazard  the  future  by  ineffectual  snatching,  for 
she  was  a  virgin,  and  he  knew  what  she  did  not  know,  that 
a  virgin  was  not  to  be  taken  as  in  novels,  even  in  first-class 
novels:  that  is,  if  the  stories  he  had  heard  from  husbands 
were  to  be  believed.  In  these  passionate  moments,  when  she 
clung  to  him  and  they  mutually  craved  one  another,  he  felt 
like  one  utterly  lost.  There  they  were,  those  two  beings  in 
him,  accursedly  antithetic:  the  impulsive  barbarian  and  the 
responsible,  calculating,  civilised  man,  and  the  latter  was  the 
stronger.  Surely,  he  was  between  the  devil  and  the  sea.  He 
was  aware  of  his  losing  in  her  eyes,  yet  should  he  hazard  the 
future  for  the  instant?  Once  when,  in  passion,  he  was  kissing 
her,  she  turned  to  him  and  asked: 

"Have  you  ever  been  with  a  woman?" 

He  was  silent. 

She  went  on:   "You  know  what  I  mean!" 

He  had  been  preparing  for  the  question,  yet  it  took  him 
by  surprise.  On  the  steamer  he  had  resolved  to  tell  her  every- 
thing should  the  occasion  arise.  He  wanted  to  keep  nothing 
378 


BRAIN-STORM 

from  her.  He  argued  that  she  would  forgive  him  everything 
after  the  many  trials  of  his  love,  his  persistent  devotion,  and 
his  final  sacrifice. 

"Yes,"  he  replied. 

"Where?"    She  sat  up  suddenly  and  looked  at  him. 

"Florence.  That  was  when  I  thought  you  had  given  me  up. 
I  had  no  idea  then  that  you  would  return  to  me!" 

"You  mean  to  say  that  you  were  as  close  as  that  to  a 
woman?" 

He  was  silent. 

"What  sort  of  a  woman  was  she?  Tell  me  about  her!"  she 
went  on  relentlessly,  in  a  hard,  cold  voice,  so  unlike  the  warm, 
passionate  voice  a  few  moments  before. 

"What  is  there  to  tell?  She  was  just  a  woman,  whom  I 
didn't  love." 

"But  you  were  close  to  her,  a  woman  of  the  streets,  so  close. 
She  was  a  woman  of  the  streets,  wasn't  she?  .  .  .  And  I 
thought  I  was  to  be  your  first!  .  .  .  Another  illusion  gone. 
So  they  go,  one  by  one.  .  .  ." 

"Look  here,  Winnie,  don't  you  understand?  I  was  longing 
for  you.  It  wasn't  my  fault  that  you  had  left  me.  I  was 
alone  and  in  utter  despair.  It  was  dark.  ...  I  tried  to 
imagine  it  was  you.  I  was  sick  with  myself  afterward.  I  have 
not  ceased  loving  you  for  an  instant,  and  I  have  suffered.  I 
had  made  up  my  mind  to  tell  you  in  any  case.  I  have  given  up 
everything  to  come  and  see  you.  After  that,  I  thought  nothing 
could  keep  us  apart.  ...  Do  you  want  me  to  go?"  he  asked 
suddenly. 

"It  seems  to  me  that  I  ought  to  feel  offended,  not  you!" 
she  replied. 

For  some  time  she  sat  like  a  stone,  and  said  not  a  word. 
He  took  her  cold  hand,  and  covered  it  with  kisses. 
379 


BABEL 

"I  suppose,"  she  said  at  last,  "I  must  accustom  myself  to 
the  idea  .  .  .  that  I  am  to  be  second  to  a  street  woman.  I 
think,"  she  added,  "111  go  and  give  myself  to  the  first  man 
that  wants  me,  before  giving  myself  to  you.  That  would  be 
only  just!" 

"Don't  say  that!"  he  exclaimed  hi  misery,  but  in  his  heart: 
"111  never  tell  the  truth  to  a  woman  again!" 

After  two  days  they  were  reconciled,  and  just  before  his 
departure  for  Philadelphia,  she  fastened  her  arms  around  his 
neck  and  said  with  a  great  tenderness: 

"I  don't  feel  like  letting  you  go,  not  even  for  a  few  days. 
I  never  want  to  let  you  out  of  my  sight  again.  I  love  you  so!" 

CITY  OF  BROTHERLY  LOVE  AGAIN 

He  spent  a  week  in  Philadelphia,  and  he  afterwards  re- 
membered it  as  a  series  of  bitter  and  fragmentary  impressions. 
There  were  the  leagues  of  erect  sleepy  streets  with  rows  of 
little  red  brick  houses  stretching  into  infinity.  The  same 
sense  of  apathy  and  futility  hung  over  the  town,  in  which  he 
had  spent  the  best  part  of  his  life,  as  when  he  had  left  it. 
There  was  the  same  frozen  figure  of  William  Penn  on  the  tall 
tower  of  the  ugly  City  Hall,  with  new  snow  on  the  brim  of 
his  hat.  There  were  the  same  slow-moving  yellow  trolleys 
and  the  same  intermittent,  depressing  clank  of  their  gongs. 
His  soul  and  body  froze  in  the  city  of  his  unhappiness. 

The  same  pall  of  doom  hung  over  the  Gombarov  household, 
and  as  in  other  days  it  caused  his  limbs  to  grow  numb,  robbed 
him  of  his  will.  Stepfather  Gombarov  stood  over  the  same 
slant  reading  desk  and  went  on  collecting  material  for  his 
colossal  History  of  Comparative  Cultures,  Ancient  and  Mod- 
ern, Oriental  and  Occidental,  of  which  he  was  yet  to  do  a  line 
of  actual  writing.  He  had  withered,  had  become  but  a  shadow 
380 


BRAIN-STORM 

of  himself.  His  deafness  had  grown  worse;  you  had  to  shout 
in  his  ear  to  make  him  hear.  It  was  pitiful  to  see  what  had 
become  of  his  once  sturdy,  energetic  frame.  He  was  a  broken, 
a  wasted  man.  Only  his  brain  lived  on,  the  dream  of  himself 
had  lived  on.  And  as  Gombarov  looked  at  his  stepfather,  who 
had  caused  such  havoc  in  all  their  lives,  he  could  no  longer 
hate  him,  only  pity  him.  After  all,  he  too  had  been  a  victim. 
Nature  had  endowed  him  with  rich  gifts,  which  other  places 
and  other  times  might  have  made  use  of.  Simply  wasted! 

The  two  years  had  also  greatly  aged  his  mother,  but  as 
before  she  was  brave  and  all-enduring.  Mother  and  son  under- 
stood one  another  for  the  first  time.  He  understood  the  love 
she  had  given  that  strange,  gifted,  now  broken  man.  Like- 
wise he  understood  that  it  was  such  as  she,  capable  of  such 
love  as  hers,  that  he  had  sought  in  his  own  love,  and  that  such 
love  was  a  rare,  rare  thing,  to  be  found  only  beyond  the  seven 
fairy  kingdoms. 

As  for  the  rest,  Dunya  was  the  same  affectionate  Dunya, 
helping  the  family  all  she  could  in  spite  of  her  own  two 
young  ones;  Raya  was  the  same  old  Raya,  with  a  heart  of 
pure  gold,  working  at  artificial  flowers  by  day  and  helping 
evenings  at  home,  a  frustrate  soul.  There  was  Sonya  an 
invalid,  and  there  was  Katya  suffering  from  imaginary  illnesses. 
The  integrally  honest  Absalom,  who  had  given  up  Art  after 
a  four  years'  infatuation  because  he  saw  no  place  for  it  in 
a  mechanised  society,  was  a  bookkeeper,  admired  and  beloved 
by  all  who  came  in  contact  with  him  for  the  chastity  of  his 
soul.  Misha  was  home  on  a  visit.  He  was  working  in  a 
Government  scientific  institution  in  Detroit,  and  he  sent  all 
his  earnings  home,  all  but  what  he  required  for  his  bare  neces- 
sities. He  was  a  mathematical  genius,  in  character  like  his 
father,  an  eternal  child.  Margaret,  the  youngest,  now  a 


BABEL 

pretty  girl  of  seventeen,  was,  with  the  exception  of  Dunya, 
the  most  cheerful  of  the  Gorabarovs,  but  child-like  and  guile- 
less like  the  rest.  All  the  Gombarovs  had  gifts,  but  curiously 
they  remained  misfits  in  an  industrial  society,  anachronisms 
in  an  age  of  machines.  In  this  new  world  they  were  like 
flowers  clinging  desperately  to  the  side  of  a  rock,  which  had  not 
sufficient  earthiness  for  them  to  dig  their  roots  deep  in. 

His  last  vision,  as  he  caught  the  trolley  for  the  railway 
station,  was  that  of  his  mother,  a  small,  somewhat  hunched 
figure,  standing  on  the  snowed-up  sidewalk  and  looking 
towards  him  in  an  attitude  of  unutterably  tender  wistfulness. 

One  thing  he  afterwards  remembered  of  his  visit  to  the  City 
of  Brotherly  Love  with  a  peculiar  satisfaction,  and  that  was 
his  call  on  the  New  World.  His  old  colleagues  were  all  there. 
They  immediately  surrounded  him  with  the  curiosity  that 
practical,  sensible  men,  frustrate  in  their  hearts,  had  for  a 
nomad  and  adventurer,  who  had  dared  to  cast  off  his  chains 
of  sloth  and  comfort.  His  old  chief  and  friend,  Mr.  Clarke, 
came  in  and  extended  him  a  hearty  welcome  with  both  hands, 
exclaiming: 

"Have  you  come  back  to  us?  Are  you  ready  to  roll  up  your 
sleeves  and  join  the  boys?" 

Gombarov  looked  quizzical. 

"I  am  not  joking,"  said  Mr.  Clarke,  catching  his  look.  "I 
promised  to  keep  the  job  open  for  you  a  year.  You've  been 
away  two.  But  I  won't  hold  that  up  against  you.  We  miss 
you  here!" 

Gombarov's  thoughts  for  an  instant  concentrated  on  the 
slimness  of  his  purse  and  on  the  hopelessness  of  his  outlook. 
Here  was  a  chance  to  obtain  material  security.  The  tempta- 
tion was  great.  His  hesitation  lasted  some  seconds,  but  a  wave 
of  pride  and  defiance  sweeping  over  him,  he  answered  firmly: 
382 


BRAIN-STORM 

"No,  I  haven't  come  for  that!" 

He,  a  penniless  beggar,  was  defying  the  cruel  gods.  It  was 
good  to  defy  the  gods! 

THICK,  AND  FASTER! 

He  returned  to  New  York  with  a  little  over  fifty  dollars  in 
his  pocket.  This  was  to  pay  for  his  subsistence  there  and 
for  a  ticket  to  take  him  back  to  London.  And  then?  The 
heaviness  of  his  heart  increased  in  ratio  to  the  lightening  of  his 
purse.  And  in  his  week's  absence  he  had  received  but  one 
brief  note  from  Winifred.  Considering  the  fervency  of  their 
parting,  this  note  was  as  the  breath  from  an  ice  chest.  It 
caused  him  not  a  little  misgiving. 

He  went  direct  to  the  Gwynnes,  investing  a  dollar  on  the 
way  in  violets,  which  Winifred  loved.  He  greeted  her  affection- 
ately, but  to  his  chagrin,  she  turned  her  head  so  that  his  kiss 
intended  for  the  lips  miscarried  to  the  cheek.  His  heart  went 
numb.  She  seemed  cold  and  indifferent.  He  decided  to  be 
patient.  Women  were  sometimes  like  that.  Two  days  passed, 
and  her  mood  did  not  change. 

"Do  you  realise,"  he  asked  her  one  evening,  "that  in  a  few 
days  I  shall  be  returning  to  London?" 

She  made  no  reply. 

"Perhaps,"  he  continued,  "I  shouldn't  have  come!" 

"Why  did  you?" 

"As  if  you  didn't  know!  You  yourself  begged  me  to  come. 
And  I  have  given  up  everything  to  please  you." 

"It  isn't  nice  of  you  to  harp  on  that.  You  wanted  to  come, 
didn't  you?  You  did  it  to  please  yourself!" 

What  could  he  say  after  that?    It  would  be  futile  to  remind 
her  of  those  clamorous  letters,  entreating  him  to  come  over, 
"if  only  for  one  wee  little  instant!" 
383 


BABEL 

"I  suppose  you  and  your  mother  have  talked  me  over  in  my 
absence  and  decided  that  it  won't  do  to  tie  yourself  up  with 
a  failure?" 

"You  always  blame  mother!  She  is  the  dearest  soul  in  the 
world.  But  you  are  not  the  same  John  that  I  once  knew. 
You  are  somehow  different.  Can't  we  be  friends?" 

"I  see  it  is  time  for  me  to  go!"  He  rose.  He  began  wrap- 
ping up  some  things  he  had  there,  prolonging  the  operation  to 
give  her  a  chance  to  think  over  the  course  she  was  pursuing. 

"You  are  not  going?    Like  that?" 

"How  should  I  go?  Rejoicing?  I  know  when  I'm  not 
wanted!" 

"But  you  are  expected  with  us  at  Roneys'  tomorrow  night. 
They've  asked  some  people  to  meet  you!" 

"You  can  give  them  my  apologies.  Give  them  any  excuse 
you  like!  Good-by!" 

She  started  weeping. 

"What  is  the  use  of  that?  It  is  your  will,  not  mine.  It 
is  for  me  to  weep.  Good-by! " 

And  he  walked  out. 

A  fine  snow  was  falling,  and  melted  as  it  fell.  The  ground 
was  covered  with  sleet,  and  his  feet  sagged  in  it  as  if  they 
were  walking  over  wet  sponges,  which  oozed  their  cold  moisture 
into  his  low  English  shoes,  not  made  for  coping  with  a  New 
York  winter.  He  felt  empty,  poignantly  empty,  as  a  shell 
walking,  only  conscious  of  his  extremities,  numbed  feet  and 
hands  and  a  numbed  brain.  He  did  not  want  to  go  back  to 
his  cold  empty  room.  Where  should  he  go?  He  wanted 
warmth,  the  warm  contact  of  a  male  presence.  He  decided 
he  would  look  up  Roney  at  his  office.  He  hoped  he  would 
be  in.  He  could  not  bear  a  disappointment.  He  ascended 
the  nearest  elevated  station.  Ascending,  there  was  the  un- 
384 


BRAIN-STORM 

comfortable  feeling  of  cold,  wet  drops  dripping.  As  he  held 
on  to  the  cold,  iron  banister,  one  drop  struck  his  nose,  another 
went  down  his  neck.  The  station  platform  was  deserted. 
The  lights  of  the  train  approached,  precipitately.  There  was 
an  impulse  to  jump,  to  end  it  all,  this  ridiculous  farce  of  life. 
The  tram  pulled  up  with  a  harsh,  grating  sound.  He  took  a 
seat.  A  row  of  sallow,  tortured  faces  seemed  to  gape  at  him. 
He  felt  an  Ishmael,  a  Pariah,  a  Wandering  Jew. 

He  got  out  near  Park  Row,  once  more  trudged  over  wet 
sponges.  Thank  God,  Roney  was  hi! 

"What's  the  matter,  John?"  Roney  looked  at  his  friend's 
ashen-green  face,  and  guessed  the  truth.  "Anyhow,  let's  go  to 
the  Press  Club.  We  can  have  a  drink  and  a  chat  there! "  And 
he  took  Gombarov  affectionately  under  the  arm. 

"I  have  come  to  offer  apologies,"  said  Gombarov,  once  they 
were  comfortably  seated  near  the  radiator  over  drinks.  "I 
can't  come  to  your  party  tomorrow.  I  want  you  to  know  why." 
And  Gombarov  told  him. 

Roney  whistled.  "I  call  it  a  bit  thick  to  bring  you  all  the 
way  over  for  this.  A  real  dirty  trick!"  He  put  a  hand  on 
Gombarov's  shoulder.  "Are  they  coming  tomorrow?" 

"I  believe  so!" 

"Well,  leave  it  to  me!  I'll  tell  them  what  I  think  of  it, 
you  may  bet  on  that!" 

They  parted  at  one.  Gombarov  went  to  his  lodgings.  To 
sleep?  Was  it  likely? 

The  snow  went  on  falling. 

BRAIN  JAZZ! 

His  head  on  the  pillow,  his  body  curled  up  between  the 
sheets,  his  numbed  brain  began  to  thaw  and  to  release  all 
manner  of  thoughts,  harsh,  jangling,  full  of  contrariety,  like 
385 


BABEL 

the  tunes  of  the  band  he  had  heard  on  the  evening  of  his 
arrival.    His  mind  was  in  a  state  of  jazz,  was  jazz. 

Three  Gombarovs  sat  somewhere  in  his  brain  and  manipu- 
lated the  instruments  of  his  mind  and  soul.  One  played  the 
harsh  notes,  another  the  soft,  the  third  was  neutral  and  punc- 
tuated the  antithetical  tune  with  the  inevitable  drum  beat: 
"It  had  to  be!" 

"Serve  you  right!"  said  the  hard,  jeering  one. 

"You  have  done  the  best  that  was  in  you!"  said  the  soft- 
voiced  one. 

"It  had  to  be!"  staccatoed  the  neutral  one,  on  his  drum. 

"Three  times  she  has  fooled  you!    Ha!  Ha!" 

"You  couldn't  have  done  differently.  Greater  ones  than  you 
have  been  fooled!  It  was  always  thus!" 

"It  had  to  be!    It  had  to  be!" 

"Remember  on  the  ship?  What  did  you  call  her  then? 
Your  one  hope,  your  white  girl,  your  eternity!  What  now?" 

"I  was  not  wrong.  She  is  not  to  blame.  It's  the  world! 
Her  mother!  Poor  purse!  Circumstance!" 

"It  had  to  be!  Thump!  Thump!"  and  three  voices,  to- 
gether, cried,  "Hey,  huh-h!" 

The  jazz  band  of  three  Gombarovs  played  a  tune  in  his 
brain.  It  was  a  tune  of  dissolution,  a  tune  of  chaos,  and  to 
this  tune,  his  being,  drawn  and  held  by  the  sensuous  allure 
of  Death,  and  gripped  by  her  invisible,  passionate,  tender 
fingers,  danced  with  her,  limb  to  limb,  breaths  mingling,  the 
jazz  of  dissolution,  the  jazz  of  death.  Gombarov  wanted  to 
die.  He  had  nothing  to  live  for.  He  felt  so  poor,  so  empty, 
so  alone.  And  his  mind  went  on  playing  its  jazz  tune. 

"You've  had  your  chance!  You  should  have  taken  her, 
possessed  her,  filled  her  with  yourself!  And  she  would  have 
been  yours!" 

386 


BRAIN-STORM 

"I  did  not  want  to  hazard  the  future!  I  did  not  think  that 
she  could  possibly  desert  me,  not  after  my  loving  her  so,  not 
after  my  coming  three  thousand  miles  to  see  her!" 

"It  had  to  be!    It  had  to  be!" 

"Fool!  Are  you  a  man?  You  should  have  possessed  her! 
Had  you  come  thrice  three  thousand  miles,  it  would  have  been 
the  same!  Not  by  the  length  of  his  journeys  does  a  woman 
judge  a  man!" 

"I  thought  to  conquer  her  by  civilised  means,  by  great  love, 
by  suffering,  by  sacrifice!" 

"It  had  to  be!    It  had  to  be  I" 

"Nonsense,  man!  Woman  is  primitive,  man  is  a  savage! 
They  deceive,  seduce  one  another,  by  putting  on  veils  of 
illusion.  But  in  the  end,  man?  They  strip  off  their  veils, 
tear  their  illusions  into  tatters,  leap  at  one  another  like 
savages!" 

"That  is  not  the  whole  truth.  I  cannot  believe  it.  I  will 
not  believe  it!  I  will  be  myself,  if  I  am  to  lose  everything! 
I  want  a  beyond-love!  I  admit,  present  facts  are  against  me! 
I  also  know  that  there  are  others  who  believe  as  I  do,  and 
that  there  is  great  happiness  for  men  and  women  if  they  could 
only  will  to  find  it!" 

"It  had  to  be!    It  had  to  be!" 

"Bah!  You  are  a  greater  fool  than  I  had  thought!  A 
romantic  fool!  As  foolish  as  Don  Quixote!  Anyhow,  it 
doesn't  matter!  Your  Dulcinea  was  only  Aldonzal" 

"No!  No!  I  shall  persist  in  thinking  her  Dulcinea! 
There's  something  fine  in  her!  But  she  could  not  stand  up 
against  a  practical,  mercenary  world.  Besides,  I  am  sure 
her  mother  had  a  finger  in  the  pie!" 

"It  had  to  be!" 

"You  make  me  sick!  You  should  have  caught  her  by  the 
387 


BABEL 

throat,  and  beaten  her,  had  your  will  of  her!  She  would  have 
liked  that!  And  she  would  have  been  yours!" 

"I  wonder.  .  .  .  But  even  if  it  is  true.  ...  I  wanted  to 
win  her  in  a  different  way!  If  I  have  no  power  to  win  but 
by  arrogance  and  force,  then  I  have  no  power.  That  is  what 
is  hardest  to  bear!  I  have  failed.  I  have  not  enough  inner 
power!  And  I  needed  just  that  to  conquer  the  outer  world! 
I  am  weak!  I  have  failed!  There's  but  to  die,  or  to  bear  one's 
cross!  That,  too,  requires  power!" 

"It  had  to  be!    It  had  to  be!" 

"Die?  No,  you'll  not  die.  Need  I  remind  you  that  it  is 
not  the  first  time  you  have  wished  to  die?  Every  time  she 
forsook  you,  you  wished  to  die.  Yet  you  are  alive!  You  may 
consider  yourself  lucky  one  day.  .  .  ." 

"No!  No!  No!  I  cannot  believe  it!  I  cannot  believe  it! 
She  cannot  be  so  cruel!  She  will  regret  this,  she  will  be  sorry. 
She  will  send  for  me!  She  loves  me!  She,  no  more  than  I, 
can  live  without  love!" 

"It  had  to  be!     It  had  to  be!     It  had  to  be!" 

He  rose  from  his  bed,  lit  the  gas,  and  looked  in  the  mirror. 
The  arteries  on  his  temples  throbbed,  stood  out  windingly  like 
twin  Jordans.  It  hurt  him  when  he  put  his  fingers  there.  He 
remembered  what  the  doctor  had  told  him  when  Winifred  had 
forsaken  him  the  first  time,  two  years  before.  He  must  not 
worry!  He  must  not  be  wrought  up  to  such  a  point  that  the 
arteries  stood  out.  Oh,  yes,  he  must  try  and  keep  cool !  Cool! 
But  he  felt  more  like  breaking  things.  If  he  could  only  throw 
something  out  of  the  window,  hear  the  crash  of  glass!  He 
walked  up  and  down  the  room,  and  cursed  and  blasphemed. 
It  was  a  great  relief. 

He  managed  to  get  two  hours'  sleep  towards  morning.  It 
was  warm  and  there  was  no  vestige  of  last  night's  snow.  At 
ten  he  went  out  to  breakfast,  and  before  eleven  returned  to 
388 


BRAIN-STORM 

his  room  to  get  a  handkerchief.  He  was  planning  to  walk, 
his  one  panacea.  But  he  no  sooner  reached  his  room  than 
with  astonishing  suddenness  a  high  wind  rose  and  huge  snow- 
flakes  began  to  fall.  They  fell  thick  and  fast  and  persistently, 
and  the  violent  gusts  taking  them  up  swept  them  in  eddies  like 
withered  leaves.  An  hour  passed,  and  neither  the  snow  nor 
the  wind  showed  signs  of  abating.  The  wind,  indeed,  had 
increased  in  velocity,  and  the  flakes  fell  huger  and  faster.  It 
was  a  real  blizzard.  Gombarov,  pacing  the  room,  suddenly 
remembered  that  it  was  his  birthday.  He  muttered,  half 
automatically: 

"Cursed  be  the  day  on  which  I  was  born.  .  .  ." 

Then  he  laughed  aloud.  He  was  feeling  like  an  actor  in 
a  play,  and  that  made  matters  easier. 

"Fall,  snow!  Fall  faster!  Fall  furiously!  Bury  me!  Oh, 
gods,  do  your  worst!" 

It  was  good  to  feel  everything  against  one.  It  exhilarated 
him,  made  him  feel  defiant.  It  was  good  to  stand  with  one's 
back  to  the  wall  and  hit  out  with  one's  fists. 

"Oh,  gods!"  he  cried  again,  with  a  fury  that  vied  with 
theirs,  "Oh,  gods!  Do  your  worst,  and  damn  you!" 

He  walked  up  and  down  the  room,  fierce  and  exultant.  If 
only  he  could  have  a  fire  in  the  room.  His  feet  felt  unpleas- 
antly cold.  But  his  head  was  hot  with  fury  and  defiance. 
Only  with  falling  twilight,  his  previous  evening's  mood  of 
mental  jazz  returned  and  tormented  him  with  its  diabolic, 
variegated  tune.  The  snow  went  on  falling.  He  had  not  gone 
out  all  that  day,  but  had  the  landlady  bring  him  up  some 
bread,  butter  and  cheese  and  a  pot  of  tea.  And  he  continued 
pacing  up  and  down  the  room.  Several  times  the  telephone 
bell  rang  in  the  hall  below,  and  he  wondered  whether  it 
was  from  her.  Hope  was  constantly  reborn,  and  as  constantly 
died. 

389 


BABEL 

WOMAN'S  PRIVILEGE 

It  was  the  worst  blizzard  New  York  had  had  in  twenty 
years.  In  some  places  the  drifts  were  several  feet  high.  Motor 
cars  sometimes  skirted  round  the  cleared  sidewalks,  and  motor 
'buses  had  to  be  dug  out  in  Fifth  Avenue.  Armies  of  men 
were  at  work,  and  the  snow  was  being  piled  up  in  huge  banks, 
behind  which  a  tall  man  could  hide.  In  the  dimly  lit  cross- 
town  streets  several  hold-ups  had  occurred. 

Bravely,  Gombarov  went  on  interviewing  editors,  but  with 
ill  success.  He  also  saw  Roney,  who  told  him  what  happened 
at  the  party.  Mrs.  Gwynne  tried  to  get  him  aside  to  explain 
the  causes  of  Gombarov's  absence.  But  Roney  cut  her  short 
and  told  her  that  the  way  Gombarov  was  being  treated  was 
"a  mean  shame."  Moreover,  he  had  proposed  a  toast  to  his 
absent  friend,  which  made  the  Gwynnes  uncomfortable. 

Evidently,  they  were  still  uncomfortable,  for  on  the  third 
day  after  their  parting  he  had  a  telephone  call  before  break- 
fast. 

"Come  over.    I  want  to  see  you! "  said  Winifred. 

"What  do  you  want  to  see  me  about?" 

"I  want  to  talk  to  you  about  that  little  London  shop." 

This  was  in  reference  to  a  modern  art  shop  that  Mrs. 
Gwynne  proposed  to  start  in  London.  She  was  giving  up  her 
job,  and  Gombarov  had  suggested  the  scheme,  which  made 
possible  their  going  to  London.  He  knew  the  artists  person- 
ally and  could  secure  their  co-operation. 

"Is  that  all?"  he  laughed.  "The  shop  doesn't  interest  me  I 
Good-byl"  And  he  hung  up  the  receiver. 

Next  day  at  the  same  hour  the  telephone  bell  rang  again. 

"Do  come  over,"  pleaded  Winifred.  "You  won't  be 
sorry!" 

390 


BRAIN-STORM 

"Are  you  sure  of  that?" 

"I  mean  it!    Do,  please!" 

He  went  over.  He  entered  and  stood  still.  She  approached 
him  somewhat  shamefacedly,  put  her  arms  on  his  shoulders, 
hid  her  face  in  his  bosom. 

"I  can't  do  without  you,"  she  murmured.  "Love  is  every- 
thing, life  nothing  without  love.  Forgive  me  for  making  you 
suffer.  You  mustn't  mind  me  if  I  get  into  one  of  those  moods. 
We  women  sometimes  can't  help  our  moods!" 

She  appeared  chastened.  They  sat  down  on  the  couch  and 
talked  quietly. 

"I  must  be  leaving  for  London  hi  a  few  days,"  he  said. 
"Anyhow,  you  and  your  mother  are  planning  to  come  over  in 
a  month  or  so,  so  the  parting  won't  be  a  long  one.  It  will  be 
good  to  meet  over  there.  I  cannot  say  that  I  feel  at  home 
in  New  York.  You'll  find  me  more  cheerful  over  there.  And 
it  will  be  jolly  to  show  you  round.  In  London,  too,  you  can 
live  more  cheaply,  and  amuse  yourself  without  being  a  multi- 
millionaire 1" 

"I  do  not  feel  like  letting  you  out  of  my  sight,  not  for  an 
instant,  John!" 

The  day  was  fine,  there  was  a  thaw  hi  the  air.  They  went 
walking  through  Central  Park,  and  were  happy. 

Next  day  he  bought  his  ticket  for  London,  third-class,  on  a 
sister  liner  to  the  one  on  which  he  had  arrived.  It  was  to  sail 
nine  days  hence. 

Three  days  went  by  fairly  happily.  Then  again  she  began 
to  cool.  Remembering  her  injunction  not  to  mind  her 
woman's  moods,  he  tried  patience  and  silence.  He  let  two 
days  pass.  But  four  days  remained  of  his  stay.  She  might 
consider  that.  She  might  try  to  look  cheerful.  He  did  not 
want  to  leave  for  London,  consumed  by  doubts.  And  he  let 
391 


BABEL 

another  day  pass,  without  change  in  her  mood.  In  the  evening 
he  had  some  words  with  her. 

All  next  day  he  spent  in  walking  the  streets  and  in  sitting 
in  cafes,  deliberating.  He  was  moved  inwardly  as  by  some 
impersonal  spirit,  detached  and  compelling,  urging  and  lashing 
him  on,  fiercely,  inevitably,  not  to  be  turned  aside  by  any 
intimate  will.  That  evening  the  final  test  would  come. 
Moved  by  this  greater  will  he  would  force  it,  though  he  lose 
his  kingdom.  He  hardened  himself.  He  might  have  to  pay 
the  full  price  to  retain  his  manhood. 

He  disregarded  the  telephone  message  left  at  the  house  for 
him  to  join  them  at  dinner.  He  knew  this  was  an  overture 
to  peace,  but  he  disregarded  it.  He  came  after  dinner. 

"Hello,  John!"  she  said  softly,  as  she  opened  the  door  to 
him,  dressed  in  a  frock  he  loved  her  best  in. 

"Hello!"  he  greeted  her  with  constrained  coolness.  "I  want 
to  talk  to  you!"  And  she  looked  so  sweet  and  conciliatory 
that  he  felt  the  need  of  further  hardening  himself. 

They  sat  down  on  the  couch.  She  was  very  close  to  him, 
nestled  her  head  up  against  him.  But  he  disregarded  this. 
For  some  moments  neither  spoke.  It  was  hard  for  him  to 
speak,  with  her  so  close  to  him,  nestling  up  to  him.  His  cour- 
age wavered,  but  only  for  an  instant.  He  went  on  hardening 
himself. 

"How  intuitive  women  are!"  he  thought.  "She  is  very  nice 
tonight  because  she  knows  what's  coming!  But  if  she  really 
loves  me,  she  will  cling  to  me,  surely  not  let  me  go  even  after 
what  I  have  to  tell  her.  If  she  doesn't,  then  it  doesn't  matter. 
I  must  have  all  or  nothing,  and  in  the  final  analysis  this  is 
the  test!" 

He  hardened  himself,  held  himself  taut,  at  last  cleared  his 
throat,  and  said  without  glancing  at  her: 

39* 


BRAIN-STORM 

"I  have  been  thinking  matters  over.  Things  can't  go  on 
like  this.  I  can't  have  you  loving  me  every  other  day.  You 
asked  me  to  overlook  your  moods,  and  I  have  tried  to.  But 
when  you  consider  that  I've  only  another  three  or  four  days' 
stay,  such  moods  become  wholly  incomprehensible.  I  simply 
can't  grasp  them.  I  don't  want  to  leave  for  London  tortured 
with  doubts  as  to  whether  you  love  me.  .  .  .  Perhaps,  it  is 
better  we  should  part  for  good.  .  .  ."  His  voice  broke.  He 
waited  for  the  words  that  would  settle  his  fate. 

She  edged  away  from  him  somewhat  before  she  spoke. 

"So  you  think  the  same  as  I  do!"  came  from  her,  in  a  voice 
without  a  tremor. 

Gombarov  felt  faint  at  these  words,  and  his  heart  was  filled 
with  hollow  echoes  of  the  irrevocable.  She  went  on: 

"I  am  so  glad  we  are  of  the  same  opinion.  I  thought  possi- 
bly I  might  be  in  the  wrong!" 

These  were  hard  words,  words  of  doom.  He  had  made 
his  gambler's  throw,  and  he  had  lost.  He  said  nothing. 
He  heard  her  voice,  sounding  muffled  as  from  behind  a 
wall: 

"Our  temperaments  are  not  suited  to  one  another.  Anyhow, 
you  haven't  enough  money  to  support  a  wife.  .  .  ." 

That  roused  him.  "Why  not  put  the  last  first?  Well,  it's 
time  to  clear  out!"  He  rose. 

"Don't  go  yet!"  She  gave  a  little  agitated  cry,  and  put  a 
hand  on  his  arm. 

"What  now?    Why  shouldn't  I  go?" 

"There's  the  little  shop  to  talk  over." 

He  faced  her.    "The  little  shop?" 

"Yes,  the  little  art  shop  in  London.    Mother,  you  know, 
has  given  up  her  job,  because  you  promised  your  help  with 
the  little  shop.    She  can't  do  it  without  you!" 
393 


BABEL 

He  was  dumbfounded.  He  had  not  counted  on  this.  It 
was  not  on  his  programme. 

"Is  that  why  you  came  back  to  me  the  last  time?"  he  asked 
fiercely. 

"No!  No!  That  wasn't  it  at  all!"  She  gave  again  her 
agitated  little  cry. 

"It  seems  to  me,"  he  went  on,  "that  your  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  is  pretty  well  developed,  if  your  love  isn't.  Have 
you  no  consideration  for  my  feelings  at  all  that  you  expect 
me  to  work  with  you  two  after  this?  Must  you  add  insult 
to  injury?  Isn't  it  enough  that  I  have  crossed  the  sea  on  a 
wild  goose  chase,  and  spent  every  red  cent  I  had  and  bor- 
rowed in  doing  it?" 

"There,  you  go  harping  on  that!" 

"Surely,  it  is  too  much.  .  .  ." 

Winifred  sat  down,  burying  her  face  in  her  hands,  and 
began  to  weep. 

"Good-by!"  said  Gombarov,  stretching  out  his  hand. 

"Mother!"  sobbed  Winifred,  rising  and  going  to  the  door  of 
the  next  room.  "He  is  going!" 

Mrs.  Gwynne  entered. 

"Mother,  he  refuses  to  help  you  with  the  little  shop!" 

"How  can  I?"  he  asked,  looking  and  feeling  helpless. 
"Winifred  doesn't  want  me,  so  what  is  there  for  me  to  do  but 
go?  Put  yourself  in  my  place!" 

"And  I've  given  up  my  job  because  you.  .  .  . " — and 
the  elder  woman  picked  up  a  handkerchief  to  wipe  her 
tears. 

Gombarov  felt  helpless  between  these  two  sobbing  women, 

as  he  stood  irresolutely  fingering  his    hat,    certain    that  no 

knight  errant  ever  found  himself  in  so  embarrassing  a  position 

as  this.    Women's  tears  had  a  way  of  unmanning  him,  though 

394 


BRAIN-STORM 

he  could  be  unflinching  in  circumstances  more  tragic.  He 
fought  with  himself. 

"You  must  let  me  think  it  over!"  he  said  at  last,  seeking 
some  excuse  to  get  away. 

But  the  two  women  went  on  sobbing. 

"All  right!"  he  said,  in  desperation.  "I'll  help  you,  if  you 
insist  on  it!"  The  words  were  wrung  out  of  him  by  his  old 
pity,  which  reasserted  itself.  Who  knew:  perhaps  he  had 
really  taken  the  bread  out  of  their  mouths?  He  did  not  want 
anyone  to  suffer  on  his  account. 

They  dried  their  tears  and  exchanged  irrelevancies  with 
j  him,  which  he  later  did  not  remember.  They  were  as  frag- 
ments of  conversation  one  hears  in  nightmares  and  which 
escape  on  waking.  He  only  remembered  Winifred  saying: 

"You'll  see  us  before  you  go,  won't  you?  Tomorrow  is 
Sunday,  and  you'll  not  be  having  any  business.  Why  not 
come  round,  and  if  the  day  is  nice  we  can  take  a  walk  through 
the  Park?" 

"Thank  you.    You  had  better  not  expect  me.    Good-bye!" 

Next  day  he  wrote  and  said  that  after  thinking  matters 
over  he  had  decided  that  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  assist 
them  in  London. 

"IT  IS  YOU,  O  HARLOT  CITY!" 

Two  days  later  he  sailed.  Roney  was  there  to  see  him  off. 
Roney  said: 

"Look  here,  I  don't  want  you  to  be  short  when  you  get  to 
London.  I  got  my  pay  today.  I  propose  to  lend  you  twenty- 
five  dollars.  Don't  say,  No!" 

Roney  was  a  brick.  He  stayed  with  Gombarov  until  he 
boarded  the  ship.  There  was  a  long  friendly  pressure  of 
hands,  and  impulsively  they  kissed  one  another.  Gombarov 
395 


BABEL 

ascended  the  gang-board,  waved  a  farewell  from  deck,  and 
sought  his  berth. 

He  had  an  upper  berth  in  a  four-berth  cabin,  which  was 
quite  an  international  affair,  his  fellow  inmates  consisting  of 
an  Irishman,  an  Englishman  and  a  Czech.  The  last,  a  pon- 
derous, globular  mass  of  flesh  and  entrails,  weighing  twenty 
stone  or  more,  slept  in  the  berth  under  Gombarov's.  He  in- 
variably lay  on  his  back,  and  the  apex  of  his  paunch  reached 
half  way  towards  the  upper  berth.  He  loved  lying  down, 
and  once  he  lay  down  he  slept,  and  once  he  slept  he  snored. 
When  he  did  not  whistle  or  play  the  flute,  he  hummed  like  a 
kettle  before  coming  to  a  boil  or  made  hoarse  noises  like  a 
seal,  or  blew  on  the  trumpet,  or  imitated  a  fog  horn,  or  drew  a 
deep  note  as  from  a  bass  viol,  or  simply  groaned  and  moaned, 
often  achieving  extraordinary  combinations  and  contra-puntal 
effects;  and  all  the  while  his  globular  shape  heaved  audibly, 
and  to  Gombarov's  distress,  pumped  great  volumes  of  breath 
upward.  He  was  like  a  universe  in  himself,  obscene  and  dis- 
gusting, and  his  emanations  overwhelmed  one,  there  was  no 
escaping  them.  And  Gombarov,  unhappy  and  distraught  over 
the  ways  of  the  world,  perceived  in  him  a  symbol  of  unutter- 
able things  then  stirring  across  the  face  of  the  earth.  For  in 
speaking  to  him,  Gombarov  discovered  that  the  man  was  a 
good  citizen,  had  a  house  hi  Springfield,  Illinois,  was  the  father 
of  eight  children,  loved  comfort,  had  two  bath-tubs  and  one 
gramophone,  and  always  voted  the  straight  Republican  ticket. 
He  had  achieved  all  this  and  more  by  his  own  efforts,  and  now 
he  was  "coming  home"  for  a  spell  "to  see  the  old  folks." 

The  Irishman  in  the  opposite  upper  berth  brought  three 
bottles  of  whiskey  on  board  with  him,  was  indeed  drunk  when 
he  came  on  board,  and  when  Gombarov  entered  the  cabin  of- 
fered drinks  all  around.  The  Englishman  was  a  sturdy  young 
396 


BRAIN-STORM 

sailor,  who  took  to  Gombarov  at  once,  and  within  a  day  or 
so  affectionately  addressed  him  as  "Jim."  He  offered  to  find 
him  a  job  as  a  stoker  on  that  ship  if  he  wanted  one,  and 
Gombarov  felt  flattered  at  being  credited  by  a  human  bull- 
dog with  such  high  masculine  attributes. 

Owing  to  the  rate  war  between  German  and  British  lines, 
the  ship  was  uncomfortably  crowded,  twelve  hundred  third- 
class  passengers  going  to  Europe  as  against  two  hundred  odd 
who  had  sailed  for  America  on  the  sister-liner.  But  among 
the  two  hundred  he  remembered  the  simple  faces,  the  brilliant 
peasant  costumes,  the  half  dozen  fiddles,  the  spirited  merry- 
making and  dances.  Among  these  twelve  hundred  he  noted 
the  complacent  faces  of  the  do-wells,  the  drab  standard  suits, 
three  wretched  mouth-organs,  and  furtive  groups  of  males 
sniggering  over  smutty  stories. 

Hope  was  the  name  of  the  ship  he  had  sailed  on  from 
England,  and  the  name  of  this  ship  was  Resignation.  But 
there  were  six  days  of  fine  weather,  thank  God  for  that!  He 
basked  on  deck  all  day  long,  like  a  cat,  and  the  sky  and  the 
sun  and  the  sea  absorbed  the  poison  of  his  discontent.  Only 
when  he  had  left  New  York,  just  as  the  ship  pulled  out  and 
he  watched  the  receding  buildings  from  the  stern  did  he  expe- 
rience tempestuous  emotion,  active  sorrow  and  fury.  But 
there  were  many  passengers  on  board,  and  he  concealed  all 
that  strove  within  for  dramatic  expression.  He  shook  a  mental 
fist  at  the  receding  city  and  her  towers  of  stone  and  steel. 

"It  is  you,  O  harlot  city!"  he  cried  in  his  soul,  "who  are 
responsible!  For  all!  For  all!  It  is  you  who  have  thwarted 
and  corrupted  the  human  soul!  It  is  you  who  have  robbed 
me  of  my  own!  Go  on,  then,  dancing  round  your  golden 
calf!  For  your  doom  is  coming  some  day!  Or  there  is  no 
justice,  and  no  God!" 

397 


BOOK  IV 
BEFORE  THE  FALL 


CHAPTER  XI:     LOVE'S  METAMORPHOSIS 

"Without  Contraries  is  no  progres- 
sion. Attraction  and  Repulsion, 
Reason  and  Energy,  Love  and 
Hate,  are  necessary  to  Human 
existence.  From  these  Contraries 
spring  -what  the  religious  call 
Good  and  Evil.  Good  is  the  pas- 
sion that  obeys  Reason.  Evil  is 
the  active  springing  from  Energy. 
.  .  .  Energy  is  Eternal  Delight." 
—BLAKE. 

"DAMN  BRACES,  BLESS  RELAXES" 

IT  was  good  to  be  back  in  London.  On  an  evening  late 
in  March  he  arrived  at  Paddington  from  Fishguard.  It  was 
warm,  a  fine  rain  was  falling.  He  did  not  mind  the  wet.  So 
glad  was  he  to  feel  the  stones  of  London  under  his  feet  that 
he  could  have  bent  down  and  kissed  them.  He  boarded  the 
underground  train  for  West  Kensington,  where  he  knew  a 
young  cheerful  couple,  the  Carltons,  Phil  and  Moll,  a  strug- 
gling author  and  his  wife,  living  in  a  modest  apartment.  He 
had  been  of  some  assistance  to  them  in  various  ways,  and  it 
occurred  to  him  that  he  might  find  temporary  "digs"  in  the 
same  house. 

Moll,  with  a  baby  in  her  arms,  opened  the  door  to  him. 

"You  don't  look  the  same  man  at  all!"  she  said  in  North 
of  England  accents.  "What  do  you  think,  Phil?"  This  to 
her  husband,  who  suddenly  appeared  in  the  door.  "What's 
happened  to  you,  man?" 

401 


BABEL 

"A  lot  of  things!"  he  said  enigmatically.  "Do  you  think 
I  can  have  a  room  in  the  house?" 

The  landlady  was  called,  and  he  was  accommodated  on 
the  top  floor. 

The  top  floor,  a  large  one,  was  occupied  by  suffragettes, 
save  for  his  own  small  room,  which  was  no  wider  than  a  cor- 
ridor. He  prepared  his  own  breakfast.  There  was  a  small 
kitchen  at  the  back,  which  he  shared  with  the  suffragettes, 
much  to  the  annoyance  of  one  or  two  of  them.  They  belonged 
to  the  militant  section  of  the  movement,  and  some  of  them 
had  been  in  Holloway;  in  talking  with  them  and  in  studying 
their  demeanour  he  was  not  long  in  coming  to  the  conclusion 
that  they  were  moved  by  an  intense,  consuming  hatred  of 
men,  for  no  reason  than  that  men  were  men. 

His  immediate  neighbour,  Mrs.  Thomas,  had  deserted  or 
been  deserted  by  her  husband,  who  had  used  her  "as  a  chat- 
tel" until  she  revolted  and  refused  him  access;  he  was  now 
living  with  a  barmaid.  Mrs.  Thomas  was  small  and  femi- 
nine, and  she  shared  rooms  with  a  Miss  Clackton,  who  was 
tall  and  masculine  and  walked  with  the  firm  gait  of  a  grena- 
dier. All  day  Miss  Clackton  was  away  at  the  suffrage  head- 
quarters. In  the  evening  she  returned  to  a  meal  prepared 
by  Mrs.  Thomas.  Through  the  wall  he  could  hear  their 
voices,  endearments  and  muffled  supplications.  They  "dar- 
linged"  one  another  a  great  deal. 

The  back  room,  next  to  the  kitchen,  was  occupied  by  twc 
girls,  one  pretty  and  lively,  whom  he  tried  to  talk  to,  onlj 
to  be  rebuffed  in  a  way  that  seemed  to  imply:  "Men  are  be 
neath  me!"  But  when  he  was  in  the  kitchen  in  the  eveninj 
preparing  a  cup  of  tea,  he  could  hear  her  sensual,  hysterics 
laughter,  as  of  a  girl  in  a  man's  embrace.  For  some  time  h 
could  not  understand  this  contradiction. 
402 


LOVE'S  METAMORPHOSIS 

He  knew  they  resented  his  being  there;  intuitively  they 
must  have  sensed  his  being  a  male  with  definitely  male  feel- 
ings. They  maintained,  however,  an  outward  friendliness, 
and  once  or  twice  in  the  kitchen  Mrs.  Thomas  condescended 
to  exchange  views  with  him  on  the  sex  question,  and  revealed 
herself  as  utterly  opposed  to  any  bodily  surrender  of  woman 
to  man,  leaving  him  to  imply  that  if  there  were  no  other  way 
to  breed,  the  human  race  had  better  die  out.  She  harped  on 
the  "ugliness"  of  the  contact,  the  hatefulness  of  "Love's  con- 
summation," "the  clumsy  method" — borrowing  a  phrase  from 
John  Stuart  Mill — Nature  had  devised  for  bringing  children 
into  the  world.  She  was  eaten  up  with  hatred  of  Nature  and 
God  and  Man  for  having  things  all  their  own  way,  a  wicked 
way! 

"I  agree  with  you,"  he  said,  with  moderation,  "that  women 
ought  to  have  the  vote  if  they  want  it,  that  is,  on  economic 
grounds.  But  there  is  no  use  merely  doubling  the  vote,  for 
I  take  it  that  there  are  as  many  shades  of  opinion  among 
women  as  among  men.  The  question  of  women  voting  would 
never  have  come  up  but  for  the  invention  of  the  machine  and 
the  mechanisation  of  society.  In  fact,  all  modern  problems 
have  arisen  with  the  machine!" 

"I  don't  see  that  at  all!     Women  were  before  machines!" 

"Don't  you  see,"  he  went  on,  "the  origin  of  woman  suffrage 
dates  from  the  introduction  of  the  spindle  and  the  loom,  when 
women  and  children  went  to  work  for  the  first  time  and  be- 
came separate  and  distinct  economic  units,  and  the  old  fam- 
ily unit  was  broken.  And  there  are  other  problems  for  which 
the  machine  is  responsible.  You  complain  of  England's  over- 
population, but  it  is  the  machine  that  has  enabled  England 
to  receive  food  from  abroad  in  exchange  for  manufactured 
products,  and  so  the  population  has  multiplied.  You  com- 
403 


BABEL 

plain  of  what  you  call  the  'man-made  world/  as  being  dull, 
ugly  and  uninteresting,  and  again  you  have  the  machine  to 
blame,  for  it  has  killed  craftsmanship  and  all  the  joy  of  indi- 
vidual creating.  .  .  .  And  so  I,  personally,  cannot  but  regard 
woman  suffrage  as  an  evil  in  itself,  but  a  necessary  evil  in 
our  complicated,  mechanised  age.  It  is  but  another  cog  in 
the  machine  of  society,  necessary  in  the  machine,  but  as 
useless,  really,  as  are  the  other  cogs,  or  the  whole  machine, 
for  that  matter.  If  one  cog  goes  wrong,  the  whole  machine 
goes  wrong — and  the  cogs  are  always  going  wrong!" 

Mrs.  Thomas  demurred.  She  called  his  "a  man's  point  of 
view."  She  liked  the  machine  and  all  the  comforts  it  brought, 
and  if  it  was  responsible  for  woman  coming  to  her  conscious- 
ness, then  she  liked  it  the  more! 

"But  don't  you  see,"  argued  Gombarov,  "it  hasn't  changed 
the  fundamental  problems  at  all,  and  a  woman's  surrender 
to  a  man  can  no  more  be  a  matter  for  bargaining  than  it  was 
before.  It  can  be  neither  a  question  of  money,  nor  of  law 
or  equality.  It  is  a  question  of  love,  which  is  above  all 
these!" 

"But  how  can  there  be  love  without  equality?" 

"Love  is  not  a  tacit  understanding  between  equals,"  asserted 
Gombarov,  by  this  time  exasperated.  "It  is  quite  usually,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  an  unreasoning  and  ultimate  reconcilement 
between  violent  antitheses.  It  is  a  fusion  of  elements  as 
widely  opposed  as  fire  and  water!" 

"Very  likely!"  said  Mrs.  Thomas,  with  a  caustic  smile. 
"And  what  happens?  Fire  makes  water  boil,  water  puts  fire 
out!" 

She  scored,  and  knew  it.  Gombarov,  usually  ready  with 
his  answer,  was  flustered,  a  little  enraged,  too,  at  having  been 
404 


LOVE'S  METAMORPHOSIS 

bested  by  a  woman.  All  the  same,  he  said  to  himself,  he  was 
right,  and  she  a  miserable  "man-hater"! 

He  had  enough  problems  of  his  own  to  worry  about.  The 
needs  of  his  stomach  generated  an  energy,  and  he  rose  every 
morning  early  to  work  on  articles.  When  he  heard  the  scrap- 
ing of  toast  in  the  kitchen — for  the  masculine  Miss  Clackton 
invariably  allowed  it  to  burn,  kitchen-work  being  beneath  her 
dignity — he  knew  it  was  time  to  get  up.  Within  a  fortnight 
of  his  return  he  had  half  a  dozen  articles  going  the  rounds, 
so  far  without  luck.  He  was  in  a  bad  way.  His  money  was 
running  low.  One  day,  lying  on  his  cot,  he  said  to  himself: 

"If  nothing  comes  tomorrow,  I  shall  go  tramping.  Do 
odd  farm  jobs  until  something  turns  up!" 

That  very  evening  a  small  cheque  arrived.  The  next 
morning  another. 

"Curious!"  he  thought.  "Things  always  seem  to  turn  when 
they  are  at  their  worst.  Is  it  accident?  But  as  a  fatalist 
and  something  of  a  predestinarian  I  cannot  quite  believe  in 
accident!  Of  course,  these  ideas  do  not  exclude  accident  as 
a  deliberate  part  of  the  process!"  And,  as  at  other  times, 
he  was  moved  by  a  strange  faith,  which  defied  and  challenged 
all  reason. 

He  was  starved  for  a  woman.  For  awhile  his  mind  turned 
to  Judith,  whom  he  had  not  seen  since  that  unforgettable  day 
of  her  mother's  death.  He  made  a  search  for  her  in  the  cafes 
of  the  West  End,  and  finally  visited  the  house  in  Mile  End 
Road.  Other  people  lived  there.  "So  it  is  always,"  he  re- 
flected, as  he  departed,  crestfallen.  "Too  late!  Too  late!" 

Among  the  visiting  suffragettes  was  a  quiet,  little,  blue- 
eyed,  fair-haired  woman,  a  Mrs.  Lucy  Reval,  who  alone  ap- 
peared friendly  to  him.  When  his  door  was  open,  she  would 
405 


BABEL 

sometimes  walk  in,  glance  with  respect  at  the  scattered  pages 
of  manuscript  and  engage  in  talk  with  him.  Despite  her  out- 
ward quiet  she  had  a  reputation  for  being  fiercely  militant. 
She  had  seen  the  inside  of  Holloway,  where  she  went  on  a 
hunger-strike.  He  sensed  in  her  a  fondness  for  him.  She 
had  attractions,  and  he  liked  her. 

One  day,  when  she  entered  the  room  in  her  casual  way,  he 
suddenly  drew  her  to  him  and  kissed  her.  She  did  not  pro- 
test, but  merely  asked: 

"Do  you  like  me?    You  know,  I  am  very  fond  of  you." 

They  made  an  appointment  for  tea  the  next  day  at  her 
flat. 

"Do  bring  some  of  your  writings,  and  read  to  me,"  she  said. 

It  was  a  warm  April  day,  and  she  was  dressed  in  white 
summery  garments  when  he  called.  Her  slender  arms  were 
visible  through  the  thin  material.  She  placed  him  in  a  com- 
fortable chair  and  arranged  a  cushion  at  his  head,  then  went 
to  the  kitchen  and  returned  with  a  tray  containing  sand- 
wiches, cakes  and  tea.  She  sat  down  opposite  him  and  they 
talked  over  the  tea  like  two  old  pals. 

"How  do  you  get  on  with  your  neighbours?"  she  asked. 

"Not  very  well.  I  have  the  misfortune  to  be  a  man,  and 
I  can't  conceal  the  fact  from  them." 

"They  are  rather  fanatical  about  men.  Now,  I  don't  object 
to  men  as  individuals.  It's  their  system  I  detest.  Not  that 
I  blame  Mrs.  Thomas.  Poor  thing,  she's  had  a  dreadful 
time  with  her  husband!  And  there  are  ever  so  many  women 
in  the  same  fix.  Your  English  husband  today  uses  his  wife 
just  as  he  would  a  steak  and  kidney  pie,  to  satisfy  his  appe- 
tite! There's  no  flavour,  no  finesse  in  the  relation.  I  myself 
had  to  chuck  my  husband,  because  he  didn't  know  how  to 
treat  a  woman." 

406 


LOVE'S  METAMORPHOSIS 

"What  I  don't  understand  is  how  those  two  women  can 
stand  one  another." 

"You  mean  Mrs.  Thomas  and  Miss  Clackton." 

"They  are  such  antitheses!  And  the  Clackton  girl  is  too 
much  of  a  man  to  suit  mel" 

Mrs.  Reval  smiled,  seemed  about  to  speak,  but  said  nothing. 

"What  made  you  become  a  suffragette?  You  don't  seem 
like  the  others!" 

Again  she  laughed.  "A  psychoanalyst  was  indirectly  to 
blame!"  She  paused. 

"How  could  that  be?" 

"It  was  like  this.  I  was  at  a  loose  end  for  some  time  after 
I  left  my  husband.  Didn't  know  what  to  do  with  myself. 
I  tried  a  millinery  shop  for  a  while,  but  got  sick  of  it.  I 
tried  other  things,  but  everything  tired  me.  I  wanted  to  do 
things  that  meant  something.  It  was  too  late  for  me  to 
dabble  in  the  arts.  I  grew  quite  sick  of  myself,  worried 
myself  almost  into  a  breakdown.  Then  I  heard  of  psycho- 
analysis, which  is  becoming  all  the  rage  just  now.  And  I 
went  to  an  analyist.  After  several  visits — at  a  couple  of 
guineas  per — I  received  the  information  that  I  had  a  surfeit 
of  unused  creative  energy,  and  that  I  must  divert  it  into  some 
channel,  do  something  that  would  really  interest  me.  As  it 
happened,  I  met  Mrs.  Thomas  at  the  time,  who  had  also  just 
left  her  husband,  and  she  drew  me  into  the  movement.  It 
was  what  I  wanted,  plenty  of  action  and  mental  excitement. 
Besides  that,  I  felt  that  I  was  really  doing  something  to  help 
my  sisters!" 

"In  other  words,"  said  Gombarov,  explaining  matters  half 
to  himself,  "not  being  able  to  find  love  or  the  creative  life, 
you  set  out  to  destroy,  break  windows  and  the  like!" 

"But  surely,"  she  urged,  "in  destroying,  I  am  creating  in 
407 


BABEL 

a  way.    Making  room  for  new  creation,  perhaps.     Clearing 
ground  for  a  better  future  for  the  race!" 

"Maybe  you  are  right.  What  I  can't  understand  is  your 
destroying  masterpieces  of  art.  You  cannot  replace  the 
Rokeby  Venus.  .  .  ." 

They  went  on  threshing  out  the  matter.  He  liked  her 
frankness.  She  was  as  frank  as  a  Russian  revolutionary. 
He  saw  that  she  was  pleased  when  he  told  her  so. 

"We  are  revolutionaries!"  she  said.  "We  are  sacrificing 
ourselves  to  create  a  new  world!" 

She  removed  the  tea  things,  the  tea-table  also.  She  drew 
the  curtains,  lit  the  fire  in  the  grate,  and  they  moved  their 
chairs  closer.  As  they  talked,  their  hands  sometimes  touched, 
found  themselves  at  last  clasped.  In  the  flickering  firelight 
their  eyes  shone  with  a  strange,  passionate  lustre.  The  flames 
in  their  eyes  leapt  toward  one  another.  He  moved  his  chair 
closer,  their  knees  touched.  His  right  arm  stole  round  her 
shoulder,  gathered  her  in.  Her  head  slowly,  gently,  reclined 
against  him.  They  had  ended  their  discussion  of  problems, 
and  they  sat  in  happy  silence,  which  they  feared  to  break. 
At  last,  she  looked  up  at  him  and  asked: 

"Are  you  by  any  chance  a  hypnotist?" 

He  laughed.  "Not  that  I  know  of!  What  makes  you 
ask?" 

"Because  I  don't  understand  your  power  over  me.  I  feel 
as  if  I  have  been  hypnotised.  IVe  never  been  drawn  to  a 
man  since  my  husband  failed  me,  yet  here  you  come  along 
and  do  what  you  like  with  me!  I  simply  cannot  explain  it!" 

She  suddenly  released  her  hand  from  his,  shook  her  head 
free,  and  her  fingers  dived  into  her  bosom.  She  pulled  some- 
thing out,  and  held  it  up  against  the  light.  It  was  a  little 
whip. 

408 


LOVE'S  METAMORPHOSIS 

"Do  you  see  this?"  she  asked,  laughing  nervously. 

"It's  a  whip!  What  an  extraordinary  thing  to  keep  in 
so  charming  a  bosom!  If  it  were  a  serpent,  it  couldn't  have 
astonished  me  more." 

"I  always  keep  it  there!  I  use  it  at  meetings,  to  make  a 
way  for  speakers  when  men  in  the  audience  become  obstrep- 
erous!" 

"What  a  terrible  person!" 

"You  may  well  think  so,  after  what  I  shall  say  to  you!" 

He  waited  breathlessly.  He  knew  that  something  unex- 
pected was  Coming,  but  was  not  prepared  for  what  came. 

"Do  you  see  this  little  whip?  ...  Do  you  see  it?  It  is  a 
whip,  isn't  it?" 

"Yes  .  .  ."  he  murmured. 

"Well,  I  surrender  it  to  you — as  a  symbol!  You  can  do 
what  you  like  with  me!" 

He  suddenly  thought  of  Nietzsche's  saying:  "When  you  go 
to  see  a  woman,  bring  a  little  whip  with  you!"  But  here 
was  a  woman  actually  offering  him  the  little  whip,  that  he 
might  do  as  he  liked  with  her. 

He  took  hold  of  the  whip,  and  at  the  first  contact  with  it 
his  whole  body  felt  an  infusion  of  energy,  and  moved  by  a 
sudden  savage  impulse  he  flung  it  aside,  and  lifting  the  little 
woman  in  his  arms  bore  her  into  the  next  room. 

THE  WHIRLPOOL 

It  was  a  summer  not  to  be  forgotten  by  Gombarov. 

His  intimacy  with  Lucy  did  not  cause  him  to  forget  Wini- 
fred, whom,  in  spite  of  his  better  judgment,  he  desired  more 
ardently  than  ever,  but  his  desire  now  had  few  of  the 
old  attributes.  If  she  had  been  attainable  and  within  his 
reach,  she  would  with  her  body  have  provided  the  holocaust 
409 


BABEL 

so  necessary  for  his  deliverance  from  the  wrath  of  the  gods. 
His  sensual  being,  like  Moses'  mystic  bush,  flared  and  flared 
with  a  fierce  flame,  which  would  not  abate.  He  had  Lucy,  but 
he  needed  yet  other  outlets  for  his  savage  energy. 

He  found  one  such  outlet  in  the  militant,  anarchic  arts  of 
the  day.  Fierce,  defiant  and  contemptuous,  they  were  in 
accord  with  his  new  mood.  They  challenged  the  whole  dull 
fabric  of  the  old  world,  flaunted  their  violent  flaming  colours 
against  the  surrounding  drabness,  defied  decrepit  convention, 
violated  complacency,  comfort  and  boredom,  and  flung  their 
jeering,  semi-barbaric  malice  in  the  face  of  the  bourgeois 
respectabilities.  The  artists  were  avenging  themselves  on  the 
Nineteenth  Century  for  its  deposition  of  Beauty,  creative  life, 
from  the  councils  of  humanity,  and  for  the  usurpation  of  its 
place  by  sprawling,  flabby,  amorphous  Suburbia.  Not  that 
all  artists  were  conscious  of  social  revolt;  some  of  them  were 
genuinely  striving  to  break  new  ground,  to  create  new  living 
forms,  but  in  their  indifference  and  nonchalance  was  a  gesture 
of  revolt  even  greater  than  that  of  the  writers  of  manifestoes. 

In  spite  of  the  international  character  of  the  new  art,  an 
extraordinary  spirit  of  nationalism  broke  out  in  the  leading 
group  of  English  ultra-moderns.  These  declared  that  they 
were  tired  of  French  self-appointed  domination  in  the  arts, 
and  asserted  that  Paris  was  a  usurper,  inasmuch  as  modern 
art  was  founded  on  the  principles  of  the  machine,  brought 
into  being  by  the  Anglo-Saxon.  In  a  series  of  manifestoes 
they  proclaimed  the  superiority  of  the  Anglo-Saxon,  and  Lon- 
don the  natural  Capital  of  modern  art.  They  published  these 
manifestoes  in  large  flaunting  types  in  the  Dynamo,  a  huge 
periodical,  exceeding  a  volume  of  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica 
in  format  and  exposing  a  cover  having  all  the  colours  of  the 
rainbow.  This  group  called  themselves  the  Dynamists.  "Tl 
410 


LOVE'S  METAMORPHOSIS 

Anglo-Saxon  world,"  they  declared,  "is  the  beneficent  dynamo 
scattering  light  to  France  and  the  benighted,  decadent  Latins, 
as  well  as  to  other  nations."  Strange  to  say,  among  the  lead- 
ing members  of  this  pro-English  group  were  Tobias  Bagg,  an 
American;  Jan  Maczishek,  a  Pole;  and  Rafael  Guggenheim, 
a  Jew.  This  group  militantly  entrenched  itself,  and  now  and 
then  sallied  out  to  subvert  the  depredations  of  the  "decadent, 
feminine  Latins."  They  laughed  to  scorn  the  attempts  of  the 
leading  Italian  Futurist  to  make  propaganda  in  England  by 
advocating  football  in  the  home  of  sport  and  chanting  the 
praises  of  trains,  motor  cars  and  aeroplanes  in  the  home  of 
the  machine.  But  they  made  no  effort  to  controvert  his  cry 
of  "The  glory  of  war  and  contempt  of  women!" 

Gombarov  saw  a  great  deal  of  Tobias  Bagg  in  those  days. 
Bagg,  who  had  so  often  declared  marriage  to  be  against  his 
principles,  had  lately  married,  and  on  his  return  from  the 
honeymoon  was  very  busy  on  Dynamist  manifestoes,  when 
he  was  not  engaged  in  translating  Arabic  love  poems.  Like 
other  artists  of  the  day,  in  order  to  live  he  had  to  lead,  so 
to  speak,  a  "double  life."  A  Yiddish  proverb  goes,  "You 
can't  dance  at  two  weddings!" — but  Bagg  accomplished  this 
seemingly  impossible  miracle,  at  the  risk  of  being  called  in- 
consistent in  one  camp,  a  passeiste  in  the  other. 

Gombarov  hung  on  the  edge  of  this  group,  and  without 
actually  being  one  of  them  drew  from  them  a  kind  of  blind 
energy,  which  he  applied  in  his  own  way  against  the  com- 
placency of  the  academicians.  He  sympathised  with  the 
Dynamists  in  the  degree  that  he  recognised  them  as  thwarted 
creators  who  were  manufacturing  a  kind  of  spiritual  dynamite 
wherewith  to  shake  the  world  out  of  its  smugness.  More 
than  they  knew  they  were  feeling  the  pulse  of  a  sick,  weary 
world  and  presaged  a  catastrophe  for  the  good  of  its  thwarted 
411 


BABEL 

soul.  But  London  was  amused  at  the  antics  of  the  revolu- 
tionaries. Lady  So-and-So  and  Lady  So-and-So  were  in  the 
fashion  by  becoming  their  patronesses.  The  comic  and  even 
the  serious  journals  had  good  sport.  A  great  sensation  was 
caused  by  a  poet  who  came  to  a  Futurist  lecture  attired  in 
violet  trousers,  dark  red  jacket  and  red  shoes.  What  would 
they  be  up  to  next? 

The  will  to  live  and  the  will  to  die,  the  will  to  create  and 
the  will  to  destroy,  went  hand  in  hand.  The  most  extraordi- 
nary happenings  were  reported  in  the  press:  suffragist 
"atrocities,"  piquant  divorce  cases,  murders,  Irish  home  rule, 
Mormon  agitation,  threats  of  a  universal  strike,  the  assassina- 
tion of  the  Austrian  Archduke,  etc.,  etc.  No  individual  but 
seemed  touched  and  infected  by  the  hectic  spirit  of  the  day. 
The  old  looked  on  askance,  the  academies  passed  resolutions 
condemning  the  new  tendencies,  which  was  like  King  Canute 
commanding  the  sea-tides  to  stop. 

A  great  tidal  wave  was  sweeping  up  old  illusions  and  roman- 
tic impulses,  old  pities,  too!  Little  of  pity  remained  in 
Gombarov  after  the  blows  that  had  been  inflicted  on  him; 
they  filled  him  with  rancour  and  malice  and  these  he  some- 
times vented  on  poor  Lucy.  But  once  having  surrendered  the 
little  whip  to  him,  Lucy  submitted,  indeed  seemed  to  love  him 
the  more,  though  she  continued  her  suffragist  activities  and 
constantly  warned  him  that  she  was  being  watched  by  the 
police. 

One  evening  at  the  flat,  Lucy,  her  long  hair  down,  attired 
in  an  attractive  night-dress,  nestled  up  to  him  like  a  small, 
fond  child.  But  he  was  thinking  of  Winifred.  Unaware  of 
the  cause  of  his  tortured  abstraction,  she  caressed  his  body 
and  limbs  with  warm  hands,  drunken  with  loving. 

"My  pet!"  she  murmured.  "Please  don't  worry.  Don't 
412 


LOVE'S  METAMORPHOSIS 

think  of  the  outside  world.  Just  think  of  the  world  as  this 
spot,  and  you  and  I,  just  you  and  I!  The  other  world 
doesn't  exist,  simply  doesn't  exist!  Just  get  closer  to  me, 
pet,  closer  to  me!  You  can't  be  too  close  to  me.  If  I  could 
only  get  into  your  head,  and  your  heart,  and  put  my  hand 
on  what's  troubling  you,  I  should  willingly,  oh,  how  willingly, 
take  it  all  upon  myself!  If  I  only  could!" 

"If  you  only  could!"  he  echoed  her,  thinking  of  Winifred. 
"I  don't  deserve  you,  really!" 

"Tut!  Tut!  Darling.  You  don't  know  yourself.  I  only 
feel  that  you  are  being  thwarted,  warped  by  something.  But 
you  don't  know  your  own  strength.  You  have  such  potentiali- 
ties, if  you  only  knew!  You  have  been  crushed  by  your  suf- 
ferings. Yet  some  day  you  may  see  clearly,  then  I  shall 
expect  great  things  of  you.  .  .  ." 

She  talked  and  talked,  caressing  all  the  while  his  body 
and  limbs,  with  warm,  drunken  fingers,  until  she  warmed  his 
malice,  his  thought  of  Winifred,  out  of  him,  and  he  gathered 
her  to  him  with  a  great  tenderness,  until  he  no  longer  felt 
that  either  he  or  she  existed,  but  was  conscious  only  of  a  single 
stream  of  flame  flowing  through  a  cohesive  indeterminate 
oneness,  without  source  or  goal.  But  in  the  very  midst  of 
their  oneness,  total  obliteration  of  self,  a  thought,  an  accursed 
thought,  leapt  through  his  mind,  flaunting  the  image  of  her 
whom  he  once  had  loved  with  all  his  soul  and  in  the  ecstasy 
of  their  oneness  he  taunted  Lucy: 

"Well,  my  little  suffragette,  where's  your  suffrage  now?" 

And  she,  passionate  and  humble,  indeterminate  component 
of  a  oneness,  replied: 

"Don't  think  of  it,  my  love.  I  only  care  for  you.  What 
else  matters?  Only  to  be  destroyed  utterly!" 

He  felt  ashamed,  and  wholly  disarmed  by  her  words.  He 
413 


BABEL 


nestled  against  her  like  a  child,  silently  imploring  her  com- 
passion. He  dropped  off  to  sleep,  her  fingers  running  through 
his  hair. 

Next  morning  she  prepared  breakfast  for  them  both,  then, 
after  turning  up  her  face  for  a  kiss,  departed  for  the  Suffrage 
headquarters,  where  onerous  tasks  awaited  her. 

"Do  you  know,"  she  said  to  him  one  evening,  "my  heart  has 
been  less  and  less  in  my  work  since  I  have  known  you?  I  seem 
to  live  almost  entirely  for  you.  I  have  become  quite  an  ordinary 
woman.  If  they  only  knew  at  the  headquarters,  I  believe  they 
would  excommunicate  me!"  She  laughed  at  the  thought. 

"Why  don't  you  quit  it?" 

"I  can't  leave  them  in  the  lurch!  Not  just  now.  They  de- 
pend on  me  so!  Who  knows?"  she  said,  gravely,  "within  a 
week  I  may  be  deprived  of  you!" 

"What  do  you  mean?"  he  said,  with  alarm. 

"You  dear!"  she  said,  kissing  him.  "You  see,  pet,  we  are 
organising  a  deputation  to  the  King.  And  it's  hardly  likely 
that  they'll  let  us  get  as  far  as  the  Palace  gates.  That  means 
there  will  be  a  scrimmage,  and  some  of  us  will  be  spending 
the  night  at  Holloway." 

"Can't  I  dissuade  you  from  going?" 

She  shook  her  head.  "I  don't  know  that  it  isn't  better 
to  go."  There  was  a  wistful  note  in  her  voice.  "Don't  you 
see,  my  love,  if  I  go  on  loving  you,  you  may  get  sick  of  me. 
But  a  holiday  hi  Holloway  may  make  you  gladder  to  see  me 
when  I  get  out."  She  laughed.  "I  am  more  far-seeing  than 
you.  I've  been  so  happy  with  you  that  I  often  think  it  can't 
last.  It's  more  than  I  had  ever  expected.  And  when  I  think 
of  all  those  women  who  have  had  nothing  in  their  lives,  my 
heart  goes  out  to  them.  .  .  ." 

"Think  it  over!"  he  urged. 

414 


LOVE'S  METAMORPHOSIS 

FATE  AT  HER  OLD  TRICKS 

She  could  not  see  him  on  the  evening  before  the  demon- 
stration. There  were  so  many  arrangements  to  make.  That 
very  evening,  as  he  wandered  abstractedly  and  alone  in  Pic- 
cadilly, he  felt  some  one  touch  him  on  the  shoulder,  and  was 
dimly  conscious  of  two  tall  feminine  figures  confronting  him. 
He  looked  up. 

"You  here!"  he  exclaimed. 

It  was  Winifred  and  her  mother. 

"Are  you  going  anywhere  in  particular?"  asked  Mrs. 
Gwynne. 

"Cafe  de  I'Empire,"  he  said,  the  idea  coming  into  his  mind, 
without  forethought. 

"Oh,  we've  heard  of  it!  Do  you  mind  taking  us  there?" 
asked  Winifred,  after  an  embarrassing  silence. 

What  could  he  do  but  consent?  After  all,  it  was  fate. 
And  he  knew  the  folly  of  trying  to  controvert  fate.  Besides, 
he  was  really  a  little  sorry  for  them,  wandering  about  in  Lon- 
don, without  knowing  a  soul. 

"Have  you  been  here  long?"  he  asked,  as  they  walked 
along. 

"About  a  week!" 

This  fact  sank  in  deeply.  They  had  been  in  London  and 
had  not  looked  him  up. 

As  if  she  had  guessed  what  was  passing  in  his  mind,  Mrs. 
Gwynne  made  haste  to  say: 

"We  had  thought  of  looking  you  up,  but  could  not  make 
up  our  minds.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  got  your  address 
only  yesterday  from  Douglass." 

"Are  you  settling  in  London?" 

"We  haven't  decided.    That  depends  largely  on  whether  we 

415 


BABEL 

can  make  a  living  here.  We  may  go  to  Paris,  where  we  know 
the  ropes." 

A  thin  flame  of  hope,  like  a  small  worm,  wriggled  up  in  his 
heart. 

They  secured  a  good  corner  seat,  from  which  they  could 
survey  the  large  cafe.  The  hour  was  creeping  on  towards 
ten,  and  newcomers  began  pouring  in.  By  eleven  o'clock  there 
was  hardly  a  vacant  seat.  The  murmur  of  voices,  fault  at  first, 
gathered  momentum,  became  a  tumult,  which  rose  and  fell  in 
undulating  cadences,  broken  only  by  woman's  shrill  laughter 
and  the  sudden  shuffle  of  dominoes  across  a  marble  table. 
The  smoke  hung  in  great  clouds  and  obscured  the  half -faded 
frescoes  of  cupids  and  nudes,  it  embraced  the  old  walls  and 
the  dingy  gilt  decoration,  and  dulled  the  mirrors  into  opaque 
surfaces.  Gombarov  reflected  upon  the  singular  fact  that  in 
this  haze,  at  once  hectic  and  tense  and  fantastic,  one  did  not 
see  whole  faces  or  individuals,  but  rather,  as  in  a  Futurist 
picture,  spots  and  fragments  of  persons  and  faces,  for  the 
most  part  grinning,  pieced  together  along  with  bits  of  dingy 
red  plush,  to  make  a  modern  design,  the  very  soul  of  disinte- 
gration, like  a  crumb  of  Camembert  under  a  microscope. 

There  was  a  group  of  Futurists  at  the  next  table.  They 
were  carrying  on  a  heated  discussion. 

"We  ought  to  support  the  suffragettes,"  one  was  saying, 
"in  their  campaign  of  destroying  passeiste  masterpieces.  We 
don't  want  any  cemeteries  in  our  midst.  We  have  our  own 
lives  to  live,  and  all  that  hinders  us — the  old,  the  decrepit 
and  the  traditional — ought  to  go.  They  are  a  good  ally!" 

"The  suffragettes  may  be  on  our  side,  but  we  are  surely 

not  on  theirs,  George!"  put  in  another,  who  was  called  Tom. 

"For  incidentally,  we  are  out  to  kill  woman  worship,  and 

don't  you  forget  it!     We  don't  want  any  petticoat  govern- 

416 


LOVE'S  METAMORPHOSIS 

ment,  or  petticoat  art,  or  petticoat  morality.  What  is  more, 
in  their  heart  of  hearts  the  women  don't  want  it,  either!" 

"I  agree  with  Tom,"  said  a  third.  "We  can  support  the 
suffragettes  in  their  destruction,  but  we  cannot  support  them 
in  principle.  .  .  ." 

"Principles,  old  chap,  are  a  cliche/"  said  the  first  speaker. 
"The  only  good  principles  are  dead  principles!  I  say,  we 
really  ought  to  pass  a  vote  of  thanks  to  those  suffragettes! 
Really,  we  ought  to!" 

"Say,  boys!"  put  in  Tom.  "What  do  you  say  to  making 
up  a  party  to  see  tomorrow's  demonstration  before  Bucking- 
ham Palace?  It  would  be  jolly  to  see  the  bout  between  the 
Amazons  and  the  bobbies!  It  will  be  a  grand  hugging  time, 
and  I  put  my  money  on  the  bobbies!" 

Gombarov  explained  matters  to  the  Gwynnes,  and  asked 
them  whether  they  would  like  to  see  the  demonstration.  They 
eagerly  accepted,  and  he  promised  to  call  for  them. 

"Yes,  those  bobbies  will  put  them  in  their  place,  you  bet!" 
said  Tom.  "In  a  man's  arms,  I  mean!"  He  grinned  at  his 
own  poor  joke,  but  suddenly  his  face  unaccountably  straight- 
ened out,  assumed  a  grave  look.  The  reason  for  this  startling 
change  of  countenance  was  soon  explained.  A  little  woman 
was  making  her  way  up  the  aisle  and  stopped  at  the  table. 

"Tom!"  she  said  in  a  manner  which  left  no  doubt  as  to 
who  was  master  of  the  menage,  "isn't  it  time  you  went  home? 
Come  along  at  once!" 

Tom  meekly  rose,  bade  his  companions  good-night,  and  fol- 
lowed the  little  woman  out.  Tom's  fellow  Futurists  and 
masterers  of  woman  grinned  at  the  fire-eater's  humiliating 
exit. 

"Nell  is  not  the  girl  to  stand  nonsense  from  a  man!"  said 
George. 

417 


BABEL 

"No!"  said  the  other.    "Though  Tom  is  pretty  strong  on 
that  'glory  of  war  and  contempt  of  woman'  stuff!" 

"It  all  goes  into  his  work!"  suggested  George. 

They  laughed. 

Gombarov  passed  a  sleepless  night.  He  was  wrought  up 
over  Winifred's  reappearance.  He  determined  to  keep  cool 
and  await  developments.  He  had  the  fatalistic  feeling  that. 
Lucy's  premonition  of  her  landing  in  Holloway  was  a  correct 
one,  and  that  he  had  seen  the  last  of  her.  And  so  Winifred's 
reappearance  seemed  all  the  more  significant!  Why  should 
these  two  females  be  always  crossing  and  recrossing  his  path? 
Surely,  the  gods  were  playing  cat  and  mouse  with  him! 

It  was  a  perfect  day  in  early  summer,  and  from  all  direc- 
tions people  were  drifting  towards  the  Palace,  to  see  the  fun! 
Gombarov,  with  the  Gwynnes,  took  up  a  position  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  Queen  Victoria  monument.  It  was  fitting, 
perhaps,  that  this  marble  image  of  the  late  Queen,  who 
reigned  supreme  in  an  age  when  women  were  not  supposed 
"to  do  things,"  much  less  think  of  possessing  a  vote,  should 
be  present  to  witness  the  reactions  her  repressive  morality 
and  policies  had  produced.  But  her  ungainly  back  was  turned 
on  the  scene.  They  stood  for  some  time  waiting,  until  shouts 
and  the  scramble  of  the  police  toward  one  of  the  gates  of 
Green  Park  indicated  that  the  demonstrators  were  approach- 
ing from  the  direction  of  Constitution  Hill.  It  was  hard  to 
tell  from  where  they  stood  what  was  happening;  only  now 
and  then  they  caught  sight  of  a  woman  bolting,  making  fran- 
tically for  the  Palace  gates,  a  half  dozen  bobbies  hi  pursuit. 
They  might  have  been  children  playing  tag.  It  was  "great 
fun"  seeing  a  woman  caught  by  a  smart,  fleet-footed  bobby 
and  kicking  her  legs  and  struggling,  while  he  held  her  in  his 
arms  tight,  so  tight!  "It  ain't  off  en  she  'as  the  chance!"  as 
418 


LOVE'S  METAMORPHOSIS 

Gombarov  heard  a  cockney  wit  put  it.  A  strange  sight,  surely, 
for  the  Capital  of  the  world,  the  hub  of  modem  civilisation! 
They  saw  many  a  woman,  her  clothes  torn,  hair  dishevelled, 
led  by  policemen,  who,  once  their  charges  ceased  struggling, 
were  courteous  and  gentle.  Doubtless,  some  of  them  had 
wives  with  suffragist  sympathies,  but  duty  is  duty,  and  one 
must  live.  The  sympathies  of  the  onlookers  were  divided. 
The  more  fervent  "Pros"  cheered  the  women  and  booed  the 
police,  the  "Antis"  reversed  the  procedure.  The  neutrals 
looked  on  with  mere  curiosity.  Many  saw  it  as  a  humorous 
spectacle  and  saved  themselves  the  price  of  a  matinee. 

"There's  an  attractive  little  woman!"  exclaimed  Winifred, 
pulling  Gombarov  by  the  sleeve.  "What  a  shame!" 

Gombarov 's  heart  thumped.  It  was  Lucy  being  led  be- 
tween two  policemen.  Her  long,  lovely  hair,  parted  in  the 
middle,  hung  loose  down  her  back  and  over  her  bosom:  it 
was  thus  she  disarrayed  herself  for  him  in  hours  of  tender- 
ness. The  torn  hem  of  her  skirt  dragged  behind  her.  At  the 
sight  of  her,  Gombarov  felt  all  pity  and  fury:  what  could  he 
do?  Her  head  erect,  she  looked  straight  before  her;  he  tried 
to  catch  her  eye,  but  she  did  not  see  him. 

"I  know  that  woman,"  said  Gombarov,  dully,  trying  to  con- 
trol his  emotion. 

They  looked  at  him  curiously;  he  wondered  whether  they 
suspected. 

They  went  to  tea. 

He  sulked,  and  was  mostly  silent.  He  was  undergoing 
mixed  emotions,  the  emotions  of  an  intellectual-emotional  man 
in  our  complex  civilisation.  He  was  not  proud  of  his  thoughts 
and  emotions,  but  there  they  were,  cutting  capers  in  him. 
Whether  he  liked  them  or  not,  he  had  to  live  with  them.  Lucy 
was  gone,  she  had  been  so  passionately  fond  of  him.  If  only 
419 


BABEL 

he  could  have  returned  it  in  full  measure!  Oh,  yes,  he  was 
fond  of  her,  but  not  half  so  much.  It  was  not  that  her  en- 
forced separation  from  him  by  a  few  days,  or  even  months, 
in  jail  must  end  their  relations;  indeed  the  thought  of  her 
suffering  softened  him.  But  fond  as  he  was  of  her  he  knew 
that  their  ways  led  in  different  directions;  the  episode  of  her 
arrest  had  merely  happened  to  take  place  at  the  fork  in  the 
road. 

Winifred  he  had  loved  with  a  fabulous  love,  and  what  had 
she  given  him  in  return?  His  fabulous  love  was  gone,  but  he 
still  wanted  her,  wanted  her  with  all  the  intensity  that  hatred 
could  give,  wanted  her  that  he  might  wreak  his  revenge  for 
what  she  had  robbed  him  of,  his  fabulous  love.  He  wanted 
to  rob  her  of  something,  though  that  were  a  poor  return  for 
what  he  had  lost.  He  had  no  scruples  left,  and  he  had  had 
so  many!  'Too  late!  Too  late!  You  fool!"  he  muttered 
to  himself. 

The  Gwynnes  decided  to  go  on  to  Paris.  Gombarov's  cour- 
tesy and  patience  failed  him.  He  was  rude,  and  there  was  a 
little  scene  in  St.  James's  Park. 

He  said  to  her:  "You  will  regret  everything!" 

"In  other  words,"  intervened  her  mother,  "you  pronounce 
an  Oriental  curse,  is  that  it?" 

Such  an  idea  had  never  occurred  to  him,  but  moved  by 
wrath,  he  replied: 

"Yes,  if  you  like!" 

But  there  was  something  in  the  idea  Mrs.  Gwynne  had 
implanted  in  him,  and  in  his  utter  loneliness  it  took  possession 
of  him.  And,  thereafter,  often,  when  he  was  sleepless  in  the 
long  nights,  he  would  pour  forth,  on  the  imagined  electric 
currents  of  the  air,  akin  to  waves  of  wireless,  his  maledictions 
against  her  who  had  treated  him  so  grievously.  He  heaped 
420 


LOVE'S  METAMORPHOSIS 

his  curses  upon  her  with  the  intensity  of  one  who  was  equally 
capable  of  intense  loving. 

After  that,  with  all  the  contriteness  of  the  human  heart, 
he  would  express  his  regrets  to  Adonai  and  Allah  and  all  the 
gods  he  could  think  of  and  pray  to  them  to  save  him  from  the 
perdition  of  his  own  curses.  He  was  in  the  intensity  of  his 
forlornness  like  one  of  those  impossible  heroes  of  the  Arabian 
Nights,  lost  among  the  maladjustments  of  the  Occident. 


42I 


CHAPTER  XII:     IT  HAD  TO  BE 

"You  have  built  a  tower  of  terri- 
ble questionings,  and  you  have 
climbed  to  its  summit  and  gazed 
at  your  earth  below.  And  you 
are  proud  to  have  risen  in  the 
world,  and  would  lift  up  other 
old  nations  to  your  height.  But 
I  fear  you  have  built  upon  sand, 
and  your  tower  is  settling  .  .  ." 
— Hard  Sayings,  by  EDWARD  J. 

O'BRIEN. 
THE   RECKONING 

TOWARDS  the  end  of  July,  a  bored,  thwarted  world  was  rap- 
idly heading  toward  destruction  and  chaos.  It  was  rich,  and 
full  of  knowledge,  and  proud  of  its  Progress,  yet  it  wanted 
to  die. 

The  proud  tower  was  tottering,  tottering.  The  prophecies 
of  the  artists  and  soothsayers  were  coming  to  pass. 

Austrian  troops  had  advanced  against  Belgrade:  that  was 
the  beginning.  Germany  and  France  and  Russia  had  mobi- 
lised. The  British  navy  stood  in  readiness.  And  during 
those  final,  irrevocable  days  in  July,  Gombarov  had  seen  ar- 
tillery passing  down  Piccadilly  after  midnight. 

Then  August.  Orators  in  Hyde  Park  and  in  Trafalgar 
Square  were  busy  denouncing  war.  The  people  were  not  with 
them.  The  speakers  were  heckled.  In  France  Jaures  had 
been  shot.  It  could  not  escape  the  honest  observer  that  the 
great  masses  in  the  European  Capitals — in  London,  as  well 
as  in  Paris  and  Berlin — wanted  war,  wanted  it  not  super- 
ficially, but  in  their  heart  of  hearts,  with  a  deep  inwardness, 
422 


IT  HAD  TO  BE 

the  causes  of  which  were  inexplicable  even  to  themselves. 
Only  a  few  philosophers  who,  having  as  it  were,  psycho- 
analysed the  world,  and  studied  the  world's  mask  as  it  was 
shaping,  and  all  the  repressed  activities  and  malignant  stirrings 
under  the  mask,  had  an  inkling  of  a  possible  reckoning. 

Gombarov,  too,  felt  strange  stirrings  within  himself  as  the 
war  fever  swept  Europe.  He  felt  intensely  patriotic,  intensely 
pro-English,  he,  an  alien  in  any  country!  He  did  not  realise 
until  much  later,  years  later,  that  it  was  not  war  with  Ger- 
many that  he  wanted,  but  war  with  any  country,  war  in  the 
abstract.  The  others,  too,  wanted  war  in  the  abstract,  though 
they  knew  it  not.  For  he,  like  the  others,  had  been  warped 
and  thwarted  by  a  mechanised  world  which  allowed  no  free- 
dom for  creative  faculties.  The  world  had  wealth  and  knowl- 
edge and  all  that  went  under  the  name  of  Progress,  but  no 
love.  It  was  not  a  girl  who  had  thwarted  him,  but  the  whole 
of  civilisation:  he  and  a  million  others  had  been  caught  and 
entangled  in  a  complex  network,  he  and  a  million  others  had 
been  rendered  as  impotent  as  if  they  had  been  so  many  flies 
caught  and  held  on  sticky  fly-paper. 

The  machine,  supposed  to  ease  the  lot  of  mankind,  had 
enslaved  it,  had  warped  and  thwarted  human  beings  by  taking 
the  creating  out  of  their  hands  and  made  them  mere  parts, 
mere  cogs  of  itself.  It  took  the  colour  and  romance  out  of 
life,  reduced  man  to  a  mechanism  of  service,  an  instrument  of 
"efficiency,"  and  enthroned  Suburbia,  Bourgeoisie  and  mock 
Democracy,  gods  of  Philistia.  It  was  natural  that  the  chief 
reaction,  the  intensest  desire  for  war,  should  come  from  Ger- 
many, where  mechanical  efficiency  and  standardisation  had 
reached  greatest  perfection.  It  was  above  all  there  that 
Hatred,  long  enchanted  and  asleep  under  the  influence  of  the 
hypnotic  eyes  of  Progress,  should  have  at  last  opened  her 
423 


BABEL 

eyes  and  stared  belligerently.  That  her  neighbours  should 
have  returned  that  stare  was  natural,  for  they  were  brothers 
and  they  understood  one  another,  and  for  the  great  love  they 
bore  the  other  they  were  to  become  fratricides;  their  sub- 
conscious eyes,  the  eyes  of  God  in  them,  saw  that  it  was  better 
to  die  than  to  live  in  chains. 

The  historian  would  be  making  a  profound  mistake  if  he 
should  derive  his  conclusions  from  diplomatic  documents; 
diplomats  are  the  instruments  of  fate,  not  its  arbiters. 
Granted  that  Germany  was  the  Judas  among  the  disciples 
of  Progress,  let  the  historian  remember  the  inevitability  of 
Judas,  his  historical  necessity:  without  him,  there  could  have 
been  no  Crucifixion,  and  therefore  no  Resurrection,  no  salva- 
tion for  mankind.  Not  in  diplomatic  documents,  then,  but 
in  the  social  conditions,  above  all,  in  the  arts  of  the  time,  the 
real  secret  of  Armageddon  is  to  be  found.  The  artists  were  the 
prophets:  they  were  the  first  to  express  the  hidden  mystery 
that  lived  and  grew  in  the  subconscious  soul  of  the  multi- 
tudes: hence,  the  reaction  towards  primitivism,  excess  of  bright 
colour,  orgiastic  sensation,  militancy  and  revolt.  Theirs,  if 
one  but  knew  it,  was  the  handwriting  on  the  wall  of  Babel, 
built  out  of  the  excess  of  knowledge,  honeycombed  with  dun- 
geons for  the  imprisonment  of  the  simplest  impulses  and  the 
imaginative  faculties.  And  they  set  forth  the  doom  of  the 
Empire  of  the  Machine,  an  end  to  yet  another  civilisation. 
The  handwriting  was  not  only  the  handwriting  but  also  the 
first  fissure  in  the  wall. 

"If  only  something  would  happen!"  This  longing  of  man 
nurtured  on  Dead  Sea  fruit  seemed  in  those  early  days  in 
August  in  a  fair  way  to  be  realised.  An  intense  excitement 
possessed  the  people,  as  they  bought  up  the  many  editions 
of  newspapers  and  scanned  their  headlines: 
424 


IT  HAD  TO  BE 

"Belgium  Invaded!" 

"Huns  Cross  Belgian  Frontier!" 

"Von  Kluck  Marching  on  Liege!" 

"The  Rape  of  Belgium!" 

No  more  than  this  was  needed  to  settle  whatever  doubts 
existed  in  the  minds  of  the  people.  In  vain  did  orators  in 
Hyde  Park  and  Trafalgar  Square  try  to  stem  the  tides  of 
loosed  passion  that  swept  the  land  of  Nelson  and  Wellington. 
A  religious  apostle  at  Marble  Arch  reminded  the  heckling 
crowd  that  war  was  unthinkable  because  parts  of  the  Gospel 
had  been  translated  into  at  least  four  hundred  and  fifty  tongues 
and  that  the  complete  Bible  was  now  to  be  had  in  over  a 
hundred  languages.  But  a  sceptic  shouted: 

"But  there  are  plenty  of  wars  in  that,  Governor!" 

On  the  steps  of  the  Nelson  column  an  independent  poli- 
tician and  litterateur,  a  man  beloved  and  of  great  distinction, 
an  aristocrat  in  stature  and  manner,  eagle-eyed,  blazed  at  a 
small  crowd. 

"Let  us  not  forget!"  he  cried,  "that  if  we  go  into  this  war, 
we  shall  be  allied  with  the  most  tyrannic  power  in  Europe,  a 
Government  which  for  centuries  has  existed  and  still  exists 
by  oppressing  the  people.  Not  even  the  Middle  Ages  could 
show  a  greater  despotism,  a  more  foul  oppression!  Shall  we 
forget  the  rule  of  the  Romanoffs,  the  corrupt  dynasty  that 
has  shamed  our  civilisation?  Shall  we  forget  the  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  its  noble  victims,  the  revolutionaries,  friends 
of  the  people,  who  have  filled  and  still  fill  her  foul  dungeons? 
Shall  we  forget  the  splendid  men  and  women  and  noble  strip- 
lings against  whom  the  Autocrats  of  All  Russias  have  sent 
the  Cossacks  and  their  whips?  Shall  we  forget  the  pogroms 
of  Jews  their  underlings  have  instigated?  Shall  we  shake  the 
blood-stained  hand  of  a  murderer?  .  .  ." 
425 


BABEL 

"What  about  poor  BePjum?"  shouted  a  man  in  the  crowd. 

The  people,  indeed,  were  greatly  exercised  over  Belgium. 
Their  feelings  were  generous  and  genuine,  a  trump  card  in 
the  hands  of  the  Government.  It  was  the  subject  of  the  ulti- 
matum to  Germany.  The  people  waited  tensely  and  ex- 
pectantly. 

It  was  thought  that  war  would  be  declared  by  Parliament 
at  its  sitting  on  the  evening  of  the  second.  Crowds  thronged 
Whitehall  and  Parliament  Square.  They  cheered  the  states- 
men whom  they  recognised  in  their  limousines,  some  with 
their  wives,  going  to  the  House  of  Commons  or  to  Downing 
Street.  Otherwise  a  tense,  expectant  silence  prevailed.  Gom- 
barov  stood  on  the  kerb  and  with  others  kept  vigil  before  the 
Parliament  gates.  Every  instant  he  expected  someone  to 
usher  forth  with  a  cry  of  "War!"  After  eleven  the  politicians 
began  to  come  out  of  the  House.  They  walked  in  couples, 
looked  grave  and  spoke  in  low  voices.  The  people  watched 
them  as  gravely  and  as  quietly.  There  was  no  war  that 
night. 

On  the  evening  of  the  third  the  crowds  were  even  greater. 
Gombarov  stood  in  front  of  Buckingham  Palace.  The  King, 
Queen  and  Princess  came  out  repeatedly  on  the  balcony  in 
response  to  the  clamor,  and  were  cheered  each  time.  Cock- 
ney wits  came  with  their  girls  and  made  merry. 

"Shall  we  eat  German  sassingers?"  cried  one  in  a  voice  that 
carried  a  great  distance. 

There  was  a  loud  guffaw,  and  the  crowd  responded  with  a 
long  drawn  out  "No-oo-h!" 

"Three  cheers  for  Kaiser  Billl"  shouted  someone,  ironically. 

Catcalls  and  hisses  greeted  this  sally. 

"Where's  Kaiser  Bill  goin'  to  'ave  'is  Christmas  dinner?" 

"In  the  Tower!"  came  the  reply  from  another  throat. 
426 


IT  HAD  TO  BE 

"And  well  stuff  his  turkey  for  him  with  grape-shot!" 

"Aye,  that  we  will,  lad!"  put  in  a  North  countryman. 

This  went  on  a  good  part  of  the  evening. 

Gombarov  went  round  to  the  barracks  near  by,  and  glanced 
through  the  railings.  Here,  in  the  large  open  space,  the  sol- 
diers, grasping  each  other's  shoulders  in  pairs,  danced  round 
wildly  and  hysterically,  and  raised  savage  outcries. 

"ON  TO  BERLIN!" 

After  eleven  o'clock  word  passed  round  that  war  was  cer- 
tain. A  considerable  portion  of  the  crowd,  suddenly  detach- 
ing themselves  from  the  rest,  with  boisterous  shouts  surged 
down  the  Mall.  Gombarov,  drawn  into  the  precipitous  move- 
ment, was  pushed  on  from  behind.  The  crowd  cheered  hys- 
terically, and  men  who  had  women  with  them  embraced  and 
seized  them,  where  and  how  they  willed.  The  cause  of  this 
outburst  was  soon  apparent.  Just  ahead  was  an  open  taxi, 
advancing  slowly.  Standing  up  on  the  rear  seat  was  a  tall, 
well-dressed,  young  woman  in  scarlet,  furiously  shouting,  and 
waving  a  flag  with  both  hands.  One  foot  she  had  raised  on 
to  the  folded  hood  of  the  taxi,  and  her  action  hi  swinging 
her  body  and  shoulders  caused  her  short  skirts  to  pull  up,  and 
there  she  stood  exposing  the  somewhat  voluminous  pink  ribbon 
garters  above  her  round,  white-stockinged  knees  and  just  above 
these  there  emerged  a  wealth  of  lace  on  her'  white  under- 
garments. She  seemed  to  be  perfectly  oblivious  to  the  expo- 
sure; not  so  the  cheering,  agitated  males,  three  or  four  of 
whom  hung  on  to  the  rear  of  the  taxi  and  with  large  eyes 
contemplated  the  blood-maddening  spectacle.  At  one  corner 
of  the  taxi  a  large  flag-shaped  placard,  supported  on  a  staff, 
bore  the  legend:  "On  to  Berlin!" 

"Come  on,  boys,  on  to  Berlin!"  shouted  the  young  woman 
427 


BABEL 

in  scarlet,  working  herself  up  into  a  state  of  sensual  fury. 
"Join  up,  boys!" 

"We  will!     We  will!     You  bet  we  will!" 

"What  will  you  do  to  them,  boys?" 

"We'll  cut  their  gizzards  out!" 

"Gizzards,  nothing!"  cried  another,  uttering  an  obscenity. 

The  crowd  poured  down  the  Mall,  uttering  cries,  rude  witti- 
cisms, obscenities;  a  turgid  stream,  pressing  in  excitement  like 
blood  in  an  artery,  long  asleep  and  now  throbbing  with  an 
overwhelming  passion,  and  transcendent  as  the  love  of  the 
Bride  of  Life  on  the  point  of  consummating  her  marriage  with 
the  Bridegroom  Death. 

They  were  within  sight  of  the  Admiralty  Arch,  when  the 
woman  in  scarlet  in  a  fierce  contralto  struck  up: 

"Rule,  Britannia!    Britannia  rule  the  waves!" 
and  hundreds  of  voices  at  once  took  it  up: 

"Britons  never,  never,  never  shall  be  slaves!" 
The  tune  ran  in  Gombarov's  blood,  and  he  sang  with  the  rest. 

The  cortege  disbanded  in  Trafalgar  Square,  owing  to  the 
density  of  the  crowd  there.  Gombarov  turned  into  White- 
hall. Late  editions  of  the  evening  papers  were  on  sale,  an- 
nouncing Great  Britain's  declaration  of  war.  He  bought  and 
read  the  headlines: 

ARMAGEDDON:  SEVEN  GREAT  NATIONS  AT  WAR 

GREAT    BRITAIN,    FRANCE,    RUSSIA,    SERBIA   AND    BELGIUM 
AGAINST  GERMANY  AND  AUSTRO-HUNGARY 


OTHER  NATIONS  TO  COME  IN 


BRITISH  FLEET  READY  FOR  ACTION 


As  with  the  crowd  surging  round  him  he  read  this  news, 
he  was  seized  with  both  fear  and  rejoicing.    What  should  he 
428 


IT  HAD  TO  BE 

fear?  Why  should  he  rejoice?  No  doubt,  there  were  others 
in  the  crowd  who  both  feared  and  rejoiced.  Why  should  they 
rejoice  at  a  calamity  so  dreadful  and  evil?  Why  should  they 
be  glad  at  the  possible  fall  of  walls  that  Civilisation  had  taken 
so  long  to  build  up? 

His  own  fears  were  clear  and  determinate.  They  were 
purely  personal  fears.  His  existence  had  been  precarious 
enough,  it  would  become  more  precarious,  perhaps  even  im- 
possible. For  he  was  a  poor  man,  bereft  of  kin  and  love 
and  money,  a  castaway  in  an  alien  land,  which  was  about  to 
become  an  armed  camp,  with  as  little  thought  of  the  friendly 
stranger  as  of  the  enemy.  But  his  rejoicing  was  abstract, 
secret,  mysterious,  with  a  total  disregard  of  his  person  or 
safety.  It  was  the  joy,  perhaps,  that  came  with  the  dim,  as 
yet  subconscious  realisation  that  here,  at  all  events,  was  an 
end  to  boredom  and  a  beginning  to  epic  events,  above  all, 
that  strange,  curiously  cosmic,  processes  of  justice  were  at 
work.  For,  surely,  if  a  great  civilisation,  which  has  boasted 
of  having  made  war  impossible,  lapses  into  barbarism,  that 
barbarism  must  have  been  there  hi  its  heart  all  the  time;  and 
having  suspected  its  being  there,  he  now  felt  justified  in  his 
long  held  supposition  of  it  all  having  been  a  delusion  and  a 
mockery!  Well,  it  was  something  to  know  that;  if  there 
was  no  pity,  at  least  there  was  some  sort  of  justice.  And  in 
the  satisfaction  of  his  discovery,  he  lost  his  personal  fears. 

"After  all,"  he  said  to  himself,  "what  does  life  matter?  The 
life  that  isl  What  do  I  matter?  When  it  comes  to  that,  I 
can  join  up.  It  may  not  be  a  bad  idea  at  all!  If  I  lose  my 
life,  what  of  it?  Only  I'd  like  to  see  it  a  clean  job.  I 
shouldn't  like  to  be  mutilated,  lose  a  leg  or  an  arm  or  the 
sight  of  my  eyes!" 

But  why  did  these  others,  these  great  multitudes,  rejoice: 
429 


BABEL 

the  shopkeepers,  the  comfortable  job  holders,  the  factory  em- 
ployes, the  well-to-do  young  bloods,  above  all  the  women? 
Were  these,  who  had  everything  to  lose,  also  exhilarated  by 
some  abstract,  secret,  mysterious,  even  mystical  purpose  with- 
held from  their  consciousness,  but  nevertheless  deep-rooted  as 
are  all  original  so-called  divine  impulses  in  men?  If  so,  there 
was  hope,  and  life  was,  indeed,  a  divine  adventure,  eternally 
pendulating  between  aspirings  and  burrowings. 

Worn  out  by  his  strenuous  day,  he  was  in  bed  by  half-past 
one.  He  did  not  close  his  eyes  until  about  six,  then  only  to 
dream. 

Once  more  Gombarov  dreamt  the  old,  ever-recurring  cor- 
ridor dream,  which  came  to  him  at  irregular  intervals  since 
childhood,  always  in  a  new  variation. 

It  was  almost  an  exact  repetition  of  the  dream  he  had  had 
two  years  before  at  Paris.  Again,  he  groped  through  a 
labyrinth  of  dimly  lit  passages  of  what  seemed  to  be  a  tall, 
tottering,  many-roomed  house,  and  on  each  side  of  him  walked 
a  shadowy  being:  one  a  grave,  quiet  presence,  the  other  fierce 
and  domineering.  They  walked  thus  for  a  long  time,  then 
the  two  presences  seemed  to  merge  into  one,  laughing  and 
weeping  by  turns.  And  sounds  of  laughter  and  weeping  came 
also  from  behind  the  shut  doors  of  innumerable  mysterious 
cells,  and  Gombarov  was  also  seized  with  laughter  and  weeping, 
and  thus,  laughing  and  weeping,  he  awoke,  and  real  tears 
ran  down  his  cheeks  in  the  broad  daylight. 

The  church  bells  were  ringing,  and  a  newsboy  in  the  street 
below  was  shouting: 

"War-r!     War-r!     The  latest  extry  about  the  war-r!" 

Moved  by  excitement,  he  jumped  out  of  bed,  washed  and 
dressed,  and  walked  out  of  doors. 

Around  the  corner  a  group  of  pleasant,  chubby-faced  boys 
430 


IT  HAD  TO  BE 

in  the  uniform  of  scouts  stood  beating  the  drums  and  blowing 
the  bugles.  In  the  background  was  a  shop,  and  in  the  window 
of  the  shop  a  placard,  and  on  the  placard  the  legend: 

"Business  as  usual!" 

Thus,  it  must  have  been  also,  when  Nineveh  fell  and 
Rome  fell. 

THE  END 


431 


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